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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Racso who wrote (3509)	3/31/1999 10:50:00 AM
From: Racso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6439

One additional point regarding current price behavior. Being the last day of the quarter, window dressing of portfolios is working at its best.Some money managers may be hard pressed to get out of MO at once not in fear of failing the "prudent investor" test but purely for marketing reasons as their end of the quarter portfolio will be closely scrutinized.

To: Racso who wrote (3509)	3/31/1999 12:48:00 PM
From: don kramer	Respond to of 6439

RASCO..pardon...but ...re: I wish to elaborate on your points. in reference to my comment , you wrote: "Your analysis on MO seems sober at first glance but is fundamentally wrong. - The prudent man rule of investment is for the courts to interpret, (a cliche...not precise - it can be a state regulator i.e., in the case of Calpers or Florida State Retirement Fund, who, by the way, have come under sever political attact for owning tobacco stocks...just last year...both Calpers and Florida State Retirement managed to fend of an assault to take the authority away from the respective individual pension funds, and place it under the state legistlature direct control. you wrote: "Investing in MO is not more imprudent than investing in companies with huge potential or actual liability claims. Any professional money manager can make his/her own independent decision on this issue." Unfortunately...regardless of the "his/her independent decision the analyst" does not make a trading decision without portfolio committee review...and most importanntly analysts do not control the in-house portfolio trading position. In other words, analysts do not run the show. (even, though they think! they do) You wrote: " Your contact at the money management industry, as impressive as it may be (and I guess myself and many others in this thread could claim similar contacts) is just an investment opinion representative of the market." Not quite true, because I was a member of the position committee. And (btw) I am not talking about public mutual fund, represented by the type which we all see on CNBC- day in and day out, all the same, saying the same thing. you wrote: "- The market expectation was for MO to win the Oregon case at the jury level. As Morgan Stanley said, it was an easy case to win. Hence the market reaction to the adverse news and, particularly, Morgan Stanley's recent downgrade." I suppose this to be true. I have no idea. The Morgan Stanley people do not invite me to lunch and I am not invited to the Christmas party. You end by writing , "-MO Price behavior yesterday and today resembles the market reaction at the beginning of February after the California Superior Court case. -Let the panic settle down but ultimately cool heads will prevail. To begin with, the irrational punitive damages assessed by the jury only strengthen MO's appeal case.Let's not forget that the tobacco industry has had all prior jury awards reversed on appeal. Only if and when this pattern changes I will start to worry about. My only comment is to essentially agree, with this caveat... from Bertrand Russell c. 1956 "The fact that 50 million people believe a foolish thing, in no way diminishes the foolishnes of the thing" from Don Kramer who wrote in 1992, "Yes, except, never stand in the way of 50million fools" I have this morning placed sell puts at 30 for my personal account. One last thing, I hope no one will get confused. I am a long time accumulator of MO. It is just going to take a bit longer, to reach the peak. stay tuned, don't panic, take a vacation, blah blah blah blah.. This is not the Titanic. I am staying with the ship. ---------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- more, later, dk