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Technology Stocks : Safeguard Scientifics SFE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael r potter who wrote (2874)	5/19/1999 9:31:00 AM
From: Rob Palmer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4467

<<PS. These are fun to answer, but a bit time consuming, will phase out the option Q and A on options at least for awhile>> No doubt they are time consuming Michael! All of your messages appear to take considerable thought. I appreciate the education. As teacher, you deserve a summer break as much as your students. This is the time of year that Oregon becomes an outdoor playground if you enjoy that sort of thing. Didn't you say you were an Oregon resident? Rob

To: michael r potter who wrote (2874)	5/20/1999 6:31:00 AM
From: Tom Bunge	Respond to of 4467

Thanks Mike for your May 19 post and well done! You covered a number of angles I had not disclosed but lived closely to in this SFE run. This is not a "Ya Buts" reply but a token of my appreciation for your correct judgement (no reply required!) and general information for those on those of the board who followed the exchange and had interest in options. It's also not the end of the story but in some ways it could have been. I did not fall in the "double or nothing" trap or perhaps did not have the time to do so. True, when the stock reached the 95's around April 10 (50 calls purchased 20, valued 70), the 2.5 leverage factor may have triggered a certain euphoria. The problem was "call options management", like it is for shares when you double in 3 weeks and see it as a long term holding. I placed stops at an equivalent level of 105 when the stock was at 115; when I found out I had been executed at 92, in the following days, my broker reported the stock had just slipped with no offer; I repurchased at 90 a few days later, only to sell at 75 to protect previous gains, etc. Hence from, it was a matter of chasing and timing an internet stock. Have not lost money yet, but certainly am not today as well as if I had held my original position without selling. So I guess the lesson is 1) it's likely that the 2.5 leverage factor of the calls did influence my early sale decision; and 2) had this unusual SFE spike not developed, I might have been tempted to "not double, but …". Overall, think that the plan was good but, as a "long term believer", even with calls, I should have held to it. Quite useful to confess once mistakes! … Let's touch wood …!