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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GraceZ who wrote (7089)	3/29/1999 2:01:00 AM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Taking your portfolio to cash is an extremely good idea. Most of the time you should carry 25 - 50% cash and have several stocks. Maybe three max. Go after stocks which have sex appeal like ATHM. The point is that if you are going to take risk, take it, don't hide. You buy a little of a company's stock. If it rises, you are justified in buying more. You always and only buy at higher prices and you never sell. This way you don't don't build up a position in a dog. If the company where you bought a starter position fails to induce you to buy more within 6 months by rising, you sell it. The more cash you have, the more flexibility you have and the less exposure. When one of you issues starts jumping you buy immediately which is usually a short term top. Thus you prefer to buy at tops. This simple formula is practiced by no one except me and even I am not religious at it because emotion gets in the way. Without exception my failure to adhere to the above tenets has reduced my return. One caveat is in order. There are times when you have to stay out no matter how attractive things look. When are those times takes many years of experience to sense. Most often the sirens are most strongly pulling at major market tops and bottoms. You have to go through a lot before you start to understand just what you are up against. The return of money issue is not significant enough to factor into your judgement. It was during the '70s when all hell was breaking loose daily that you had to consider it deeply. That doesn't mean you can't find a quick way to emulate that possibility. Ask any option buyer. To be suspicious about "return of money" is a psychological problem of trust. No progress is possible without faith and trust. In the stock market you learn to live with and accept loss, because if you don't, the stock market will strip you clean. It is your psychology that carrying a big cash position protects. It is the most important thing to protect. If you don't protect it, you won't be in any right mind to be able to act appropriately at the right time. The psychological damage caused by regret of past loss is far greater than the loss, for you are frozen by fear to take risk. Much of stock market success is built on your mental fitness, so you have to keep it in shape. As for institutional ownership, you can go down to the library and look in Bill O'Neil's "Dailygraphs" where they list the percentages. There are other sources including some on the net maybe through your broker. These sources show what institutions hold, not necessarily institutionally heavily traded stocks. ATHM has been too thin and volatile for institutional action, but that is certainly changing since their institutional ownership % has been rising. I also said elsewhere that it doesn't matter who is doing what. Institutional ownership tells you very little.