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To: Leo Yohan who wrote (1744)	1/9/1999 7:07:00 PM
From: Carl R.	Respond to of 5810

I disagree a bit with you about the reasons for the downfall of TRKN. First of all, they had more ambitions than money, always a recipe for disaster. Even before buying the English outfit they already had growing receivables and inventories - they were shipping demo systems but apparently the customers weren't impressed enough to pay. They probably could have resolved these problems and survived if it weren't for the fact that they used up all their cash just as the industry entered a downturn. As for being treated rudely on threads, if are bored you could go back to the old PMAT thread and there you would find some of the most antagonistic, personal attacks I have ever received on SI. Both Zeev Hed and I predicted disaster for PMAT when they purchased Electrotech, and were treated to rude personal attacks by one of the regulars. I avoided the stock for quite some time after that though not the thread which gradually became more civil in time. I did get caught for a loss when I tried to trade in on a bounce and got caught holding the bag, but that's life. Your experience on the APM thread is interesting. There were actually two APM threads active at the time, and I was on the other one. I was predicting disaster for APM, but I predicted it too early. I shorted it at 23 and ended up covering at 28 or so. I decided, what the heck, and traded it long from 32 to 36, and went away, still believing that they were doomed. I ended up shorting them again at 25 (too late) and covered at 13 (too early). I felt that they were poorly managed, had poor technology, and were on the wrong track. I don't follow them any more. Just curious but did your contact sell his $4 million position, or was he wiped out? Also I note that you recommend never shorting, and for most people that is good advice. I do some things in investing that I would definitely not recommend for others, and shorting occasionally is one of them. I have read some threads on Yahoo, and they are much worse that SI. I agree that there are plenty of people on SI laboring under the bizarre conception that something posted here could actually influence the stock price. On the $5 and under threads, I suppose it could, but not on the big stocks. There are plenty of people on SI who are rude and plenty who are foolish. But you can also find some people who have a great deal of knowledge and understanding of various industries and who are willing to share it. There are also plenty of threads where the discussion is civil, knowledgeable, and informative. As an example of the latter, I recommend the WFR thread. So don't let the rude people keep you away, just filter them out. I might suggest changing to a name like LeoY or something. I did that to my name, though I don't make my real name hard to figure out. For what it's worth I considered you to be knowledgeable and bookmarked you years ago, which is why your post popped you up on my screen. I have only about 10-15 people marked, and they change from time to time. And I will point out that I did that in spite of the fact that your post to me was a bit "abrasive". It doesn't bother me to be told that I am wrong, but a lot of people it does, so you might try to tone down your responses sometimes. Thanks for your time, and good luck to you, Carl