The party's going to be over soon or this thing is going to the moon!!

-- Vernon Hale (create@premiernet.net), December 23, 1999

Answers

Look. Try and understand.

1) Because new money is coming in, prices rise. 2) Because prices are rising, new money comes in. 3) Go to 1.

Don't bring the real world into this.

-- Servant (public_service@yahoo.com), December 23, 1999.

Like a dive bomber homing in on the target ! Major adjustment is coming and the reason it hasn't happened yet is because we are trying to ride it to the last wave. January should be about an "8" pucker factor.

-- Crash (crash@nuther.one), December 23, 1999.

Another factor is the "Flight to (percieved) quality". All this money goes into the market. When investors percieve a threat, they move to what they percieve to be safer ground. Unfortunately, instead of getting out, they follow the herd to whatever today's hot stock is. (mostly tech stocks) This leads to a narrower and narrower market. Synonymous with putting all the eggs in one little frayed basket.

It is also fairly stupid. In my opinion.

-- MegaMe (CWHale67@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

Because...perception is reality!!

-- (karlacalif@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

Klinton's Plunge Protection Team (a bunch of billionares) are driving prices up buy putting their big bucks in all at once. They planned this long ago and are now succeeding. Without them, the Market would have crashed already. They are manipulating the Market and making money doing so!

However when we go into January, and we see chaos, they will not be able to stop the crash! We will have a crash one way or another!

-- ... (...@....com), December 23, 1999.

The stock market has no relationship with reality--it's all based on people's perceptions and these days, illusions-- but reality always wins in the end. When the bust comes, it's going to be one of historic proportions.

Go with gold and hold.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), December 23, 1999.

Tulips anyone???

snoozin'...

The Dog

-- The Dog (dogdesert@hotmail.com), December 23, 1999.

A little voice in my head said last night, "Dave, it's time to sell those investment-grade beanie babies. Time to buy one of those "dot com" stocks." At price/revenue ratios of 100, some are lookin' pretty darn cheap.

[sarcasm off]

I believe that this is what the final stages of a market blow-off looks like. The apparent Roman orgy is a necessary pre-requisite to a monstrous correction. Never having been through one (crash or Roman orgy), I'm only guessing.

Several little details keep me sane:

(1) At a P/E ratio of 35 (don't suck for that forward looking p/e = 25 crap), the market must move sideways for 10 years before we return to the historical mean. That's, of course, assuming that we maintain 15% earnings growth for a decade.

(2) Warren Buffet did a nice analysis in Fortune in which he points out that long term equity growth can be evaluated with two parameters: growth in GDP and change in interest rates. By his math that he personally finds relatively immutable, the next 17 years can't bring more than a 5-6% return on equity even with the most optimistic assumptions. (I can elaborate on his arguments if desired.) In his words, "Our quality of life will improve dramatically [Y2K excluded] while investors will be profoundly disappointed." By the way, he dismisses technological revolution as a source of great return on equity by noting that if you had indexed the car and airline stocks throughout this century you would have obtained 0-2% return on equity. (The essence of this is that the carnage resulting from competition pretty much offsets the big gains of the fews survivors. If you're so smart to guess the 1 in 100 successful "dot coms", go for it!)

(3) My favorite metaphor is an avalanche: the snow keeps building and building. At some point it becomes metastable (just itchin' to come down.) At this point you have only two choices: (1) an avalanche (i.e., crash), or (2) a very slow, methodical melt throughout the spring (a painfully slow soft landing). There no other mechanisms to bring the market back to parity. Will the market wait 10 years. Doesn't seem all that likely.

I have deep moral convictions but don't consider myself moralistic. With that said, I think that this current generation of investors is long overdue for a slap upside the head. This is not investing; it's gambling plain and simple. The market is much older than those who are playing it right now and it won't take too much more of this guff (whatever "guff" is.).

I'm all home-made platituded out. Remember, 30-year T-bills are currently returning an annual yield what Buffet claims the market will return over the next 17 years.

Best regards...

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), December 23, 1999.

Go with gold and hold.

And in a few days, when TSHTF, you'll have a nice pile of shiny, worthless rocks.

-- Tod (tod_berg@hotmail.com), December 23, 1999.

Thank God, I am too poor to worry about such foolishness as stocks and bonds. A rich person's type of gambling. My few dollars are all taken by daily expenses. Should the stock market crash, I will have lost nothing, on the other hand I will have gained nothing. I have found that in 68 years of living that is just about the total sum of my life, nothing. I have relatives who dabble in that sort of thing, but that isnt for me. The closest thing I have done that comes close is buy a few lottery tickets, and of course as my life is, so were the lottery tickets, nothing. Sorry fellas, some how its kind of hard for my to feel sorry for you. I have never been rich enough to stand with your kind. My family has always come first, they absorbed all I have ever been able to scrape from this miserable existence.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

Havent we all thrown our Monopoly money around, when we knew the game was almost over?

Of course our monopoly money had no value, that's why we had such reckless attitudes when buying park place and boardwalk.

Hmmmm....

-- d----- (dciinc@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

<<<<<<<< Passing The Dog a bouquet of tulips to pass along......dog,,,ub 2 cute

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), December 23, 1999.

Dave: Couldn't agree with you more. Do you have an issue number for the Fortune article by Buffett? Might it be available on the net someplace?

Notforlong: Might I suggest, in the most sincere and sympathetic manner possible, that you consider getting counseling, perhaps for some cognitive therapy or medication? There is certainly plenty of pain in this life, but life is more than pain, even for the most troubled of us. You have years left to live; you owe it to yourself and those you love to live them as well and happily as po

-- Bob (graham@dodd.com), December 23, 1999.

ssible. z

-- Bob (me@again.com), December 23, 1999.

Notforlong

You get what you think you'll get. I feel sorry for you. You've got exactly what you thought you'd get

-- Asking (Asking@a qustion.com), December 23, 1999.

I'd heard day traders are only required to have a 5% investment instead of the 25% required a couple weeks ago....Admittedly I know nothing about trading. Also noticed NASDAQ started skyrocketing about the same time....

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), December 23, 1999.