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Technology Stocks : SAP A.G. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RGrey who wrote (2882)	1/5/1999 11:30:00 AM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3424

LindyBill is right. He was also right on about selling SAP earlier. Once you own a stock, a strange metamorphasis takes place and it becomes difficult to exercise your best judgement. It becomes "your" stock. SAP was once one of my biggest holding (purchased while it was still an ADR) but since the listing on the NYSE I've sold most of my shares. I would have been a lot better off to sell it all when it became obvious that the stock was showing poor relative strength. Those shares I didn't sell gradually turned from big winners to small losers. If refusing to sell allows one to postpone admitting they were wrong, doesn't selling only part allow one to claim they were only a partly wrong? Meanwhile SAP is reporting sales increases much higher than earnings increases and blaming it on Japan. To me it sounds more likely that they were having to cut prices on their products to sell them, something that wouldn't be confined to Japan. On the other hand, the long term return from tech companies tends to be tied more to sales than to short term profits. When the biggest company with the biggest profit margins cuts prices it wounds weaker competitors who can no longer afford adequate R&D. Eventually this pays off for the gorilla company. I think I will keep a few shares of SAP and hope that it is respect for the company rather than love for it that is motivating me.