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Pastimes : The Naked Truth - Big Kahuna a Myth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: accountclosed who wrote (37883)	5/3/1999 8:53:00 AM
From: MythMan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86076

Message 9280347

To: accountclosed who wrote (37883)	5/3/1999 10:52:00 AM
From: Bonnie Bear	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86076

AR: We can choose to disagree. Let me add a last few words. I just look at the market differently than most people. The NYSE is a business, it has a store front and merchandise for sale and a balance sheet just like Tiffany's or Saks. It's located in New York and keeps traditions evolved from the days stocks were traded on the street corner. And the NYSE evolved around the needs of the brokerages, who were the guys who built the NYSE and "own" it. Companies can exist perfectly well without the need to go public...the company that overwhelmingly makes the most profit on my existence is my insurance company, and it is not a publicly-traded company. Now some years ago there were a bunch of little fly-by-night companies who didn't have any cash, their merchandise was of questionable value and their management was untested...it was decided by the NYSE crowd that these unwashed urchins were unsuitable for NYSE listing. Standards were set to keep them out. And thus the NASDAQ was born, it was the place where the pink sheets and foreign stocks and little computer and software stocks went because the NYSE didn't want them. Some years later, we have Nasdaq bigger than the NYSE. The nasdaq, after all, isn't in a storefront in new york, it's not even in the US, it's anywhere a computer terminal can go. The participants don't have to follow US legal system since many are not US citizens, the money doesn't come from the US either. The doors don't have to close so the brokers can catch the train back to Darien. So we have a variety of participants here: we have stock exchanges competing for business, both in volume and listings (how they make their money). We have market-makers and brokerages competing for volume and volatility (how they make their money). We have 8000 hedge funds, 8000 mutual funds and several million individuals competing for individual issues. And we have big domestic and foreign banks competing for derivative contracts. Now "conspiracy" is a relative issue...the laws are different for different participants, a business practice considered a heinous crime in the US may be a time-honored and legal practice for another. The SEC and the Feds only have jurisdiction over US interest rates, US laws and US participants. And the US legal system is so slow that is takes five years to issue an SEC decision. So you see, in an era of electronic money exchange, the NYSE finds itself with declining listings at the expense of the nasdaq...and the feds find themselves with a jurisdictional dilemma for an exchange process and derivatives contracts that do not necessarily fall under US law and don't have disclosure requirements. And it will take them five years to get any changes through the SEC when they find processes that can be regulated. In some ways I agree with Options Jerry...but I think the process is going to be incredibly volatile and violent, and much of the money will pass out of the internet stocks and into nasdaq ADRs. I just don't see any reason why the money should stay in the US...it will go wherever it is treated the best. The bubble right now is a terrible problem for the fed...they don't count dollars outside of the US as being an issue..so when huge sums of money flow into the nas from foreign countries, they don't do anything about it because it's not in their model. This is why my big long is SWS- they own an internet business and portal, a discount electronic brokerage, a big chunk of NITE and a chunk of WIT. So I kinda think I will be able to retire comfortably on this one without wasting too much money on gold or puts, it makes money on the existence of the market. Beside that I own utilities, reits, and a microcap and ADR fund that should do OK when the bubble redistributes. The stuff you're doing is too complicated for me...I don't understand it so I have to stay away from it.