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Technology Stocks : Altaba Inc. (formerly Yahoo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave Mansfield who wrote (17872)	1/13/1999 12:52:00 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27307

Dave, You recently wrote: I understand about traders getting hammered at times. I learned a lesson at least on one occasion about being caught on the wrong side of a big move. The lesson I learned was be careful in trading and by all means, be on the right side of the long term movement of the stock. . . . if a week or so after you make the trade reality sets in and the stock tanks it may take a long time, if ever, to recover. On the other hand, if you go with the long term trend but a short term momentum swing sweeps it in the wrong direction, the long term trend should ultimately prevail. I have been reading with great interest your posts from the past couple of days -- the quoted one here and the whole "if/when" discussion too. I too have been immensely frustrated with my attempts to understand this phenomenon. I too was hammered at times by it -- made a couple of small profits and took a couple of large losses. Didn't ruin me, but it always hurts to be wrong. I wonder, though, whether we have been right in arguing that short term momentum is overwhelming the long term trend. I too have always believed that the long term trend will ultimately prevail. But set aside the past two weeks (the run from 235 to 445) and consider: this company is ahead of every other company I can think of in its field. In most cases, way ahead. It seems like it would be easy to duplicate its first mover advantage now, but no one has although several have tried. Maybe it's true that big players are waiting until real profits are made before committing the necessary effort to compete with Yahoo. But as time goes on, the first mover advantage and the brand name attachment may make Yahoo more formidable, not less. I am beginning to believe that the short term movement here is merely accentuating the long term movement and not contradicting it. Sure, there are some short term players accentuating it by speculating -- no stock gains $20 billion in market cap in less than two weeks without at least some of that. But the true believers -- well, what would it take to shake their confidence at this point? It can happen, but it would take a lot. Even relatively modest page view and revenue increases don't seem to be enough. Just the musings of a MAD DOG P.S. Please let me know if you find any more links to market cap rankings. I've been looking for one too, and the one somebody posted recently was helpful.