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Strategies & Market Trends : The Round Table: A work by the squares of the SNDK thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ausdauer who wrote (15)	2/26/1999 3:08:00 AM
From: Ron C	Respond to of 194

" Konferenz am runden Tisch " is ready to Rock and Roll. Great opening for the Thread "Prime Directive" Tx Aus Ron C.

To: Ausdauer who wrote (15)	2/26/1999 3:15:00 AM
From: Tumbleweed	Respond to of 194

Hi Aus,thanks for your megaposts! Whilst I agree with a lot of your philosophy, I beleive there is also something to be said for some very short term investing. Not as the bulk of your portfolio, but as a 'stake' that you can invest (gamble might be a better word) on stocks that you 'know' are going to do well in the short term (which for me is 1 or 2 weeks)due to special circumstances. These may be things such as impending related IPO< upcoming stock split, momentum, etc. There is a lot of info here on SI about these ttype of opportunities, and often just beeing a week or even a day ahead of the pack is all you need. Seems foolish to turn down the opportunity if its there! So I've been then taking that money, and putting it into the more 'blue chip' stocks, such as Sandisk, Aol, Level3, QWest. The difficult thing has been retaining enough 'gambling money' to keep doing that without getting all my money tied up in these medium term stocks. Now my second 'tip' of the week. Another one that has a good chance of 10 to 20% in the next week or so is Sapiens. Been rising all this week, even on market down days. It has a history of rising then falling back, I've held it for 18 months and will get out at 12 or so depending on momentum, buy back in when/if it goes down to 9 or so. Very good company, solid product, good financials, but overlooked by the market because its not a .com and its too small. Joe

To: Ausdauer who wrote (15)	2/26/1999 10:38:00 AM
From: Paul Senior	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 194

I like to invest using simple methods that are based on some measure of 'proven' validity - either through academic research, or because of long-term success(es) by their practitioner(s). Somehow, while this makes sense conceptually to everyone, it turns out, for me anyway, that I will almost always differ from others' investing philosophy. For example, the Motley Fool rules, mentioned earlier, while sounding sensible, have no confirmed validity (maybe they backtest well)-- I really don't know that the rules, in toto, work or anybody has made money using them over time. Similarly, regarding the person who buys for 1-2 week holding, there are many studies and cautions by successful investors, who say this is a method that will not work for most people. Similarly for options trading. I want to go with methods that work-- not go with methods that mostly don't. Another area, where I will differ with most people is the need for much dd or in-depth knowledge. There's no evidence that I can find, which shows that the more research, the more specific company knowledge one has, the better one's investment results are. There's nothing that I can find that even shows much DD is a requirement for investment success. I see investing as a process -- a long-term, lifetime activity. To me, investing is more a statistical game-- there will be some winners and some losers.-- I like to be HIGHLY diversified - by industries, by holding periods, by growth, by value, etc. One stock I am currently buying now, is WFMI -- Whole Foods Markets. They are having their difficulties - a decentralized business model has allowed some cost overruns and a commitment to vitamins/supplements has hurt them now too. This is all temporary. (That of course, IMO) Their stores are popular and they are expanding their number. While their business is not really exactly comparable to competitors like Albertson/Safeway, their financial numbers are better in some respects: pe, price/book, sales/sq.ft.. Three years from now, the stock price of WFMI, now near a yearly low, will be higher (assuming no market collapse, etc.) That again, is IMO (and I've been wrong many, many times before) Paul Senior