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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (27613)	1/7/1999 1:44:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

Gottfried, The problem with buying when ORDERS hit a low, is you also have to guess when that might occur. This downturn has had a larger %age drop from peak to trough than others. If you look at the posts on this thread or others, I don't think anyone has accurately predicted the ORDERS "low" prior to the stock prices more than doubling from their Oct low. IMO, it's much easier to look at historic data and identify where one should have bought than it is to make that same call when living through the decision in real time. FWIW, Ian.

To: Gottfried who wrote (27613)	1/7/1999 3:49:00 PM
From: Math Junkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

One approach to deciding when to sell would be when orders make new highs. You might not pick the top, but in a sector this volatile, you could still make big money. Another indicator is when AMAT splits. This would have worked for the last two peaks, but I haven't checked farther back. A third indicator is when the Monday San Jose Mercury News shows a large number of semi equip execs selling. Of course, there's no law that says you have to sell it all at that time. Another approach would be to sell half every time you double your money. That way you're "playing with the house's money." As a matter of fact, a strategy where you double your holdings every time the price drops by half and sell half every time it doubles might work out rather well, in the long run.