One thing I'll say about prepping for Y2K. I pulled my money out of stocks in 09/99. That alone has more than paid for my preps.

Anyone have any suggestions about identifying when to get back in? (And I will keep in mind that advice is worth what I paid for it. I promise.)

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), April 19, 2000

Answers

When you can walk down the street and not worry about someone falling on you.

-- - (x@xxx.com), April 19, 2000.

9/30/99 4/19/00 chg ------------ ----------- --------- DOW 10,337 10,675 +338 NASDAQ 2,746 3,706 +960 S&P 1,83 1,428 +145

Yeah, you're a genius alright!

-- abc (123@456.789), April 19, 2000.

Oooops! I guess that formatting makes me a "kompewter genus"!

Here we go again:

From 9/30/99 to 4/19/00

DOW: UP 338 (10,337 to 10,675) S&P: UP 145 (1,283 to 1,428) NASDAQ: UP 960 (2,746 to 3,706)

-- abc (123@456.789), April 19, 2000.

Ask GOLD LOSER.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), April 19, 2000.

Eyes,

As abc has pointed out, it seems unlikely that taking your money out of the market in September 1999 could have paid for anything. My stock funds increased by about 18% through today from 9/1/99 which is an annualized yield of about 24%. Assuming that you put your money in a money market account and not a can buried in the backyard, your annual yield would have been 6.5% tops. You lost about 17.5% annualized interest on your money.

I'm not bright enough to pick market tops and bottoms. I know that if I choose high quality funds and stocks and invest for the long term that I'll make money. Sometimes, like last week, I'll lose a bunch but that's the short term breaks.

A good time to invest is when you have the money. A good time to sell is when you need the money.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 19, 2000.

Ditto what Jim said, though I have to admit to adopting an extremely conservative stance of late. When I saw the markets ramp late last year, I had a strong sense that it was a "blowoff rally" and so I reallocated to very boring investment vehicles. I was "two months too early" in my move, but the trend since January gives strong indications that we've seen the end of this "long bull", so any missed opportunities are balanced by peace of mind.

I was surprised by the action Monday and Tuesday, but this market is nothing if not unpredictable. Turns out that it was probably a "relief rally" (strong rise on relatively low volume) in response to the very steep declines, along with some funds defending Tech positions with serious capital and trying to crush a few bears in the process.

We had a majority of sparkling earnings reports today, but the market went down anyhow. Why? Because IBM and Intel reported some weakness, and they are bellwethers for all of Tech. That has given some folks pause. We also have options expirations in this holiday-shortened week, so lots of folks will be looking for safe havens tomorrow before the markets close for Good Friday.

"Eyes", there ain't no magic to all this investment stuff: it's always about asset allocation. Diversify your holdings and vary the mix depending on your risk tolerance. Basics. Don't focus in one area and don't sweat timing.

Now if I could just stop watching the markets so closely, but my oh my, it's such fun! So much better than anything on network TV (with the possible exception of "The Practice".)

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 19, 2000.

You really love hearing yourself talk DeeEmBee. You should try making some money out of this, have you tried to send your market analysis essays to CNNfn? You or someone else, it's all the same.

-- (investor@staying.the.course), April 19, 2000.

It might makes sense if you disagree with something that Dee said to address that rather than making a purile and undeserved personal attack.

Dee, I was suprised at the strength of the markets both Monday and Tuesday but, as you say, the markets are certainly unpredictable now. I would think the markets have to decline some again Thursday as everyone gets their portfolios in shape for the three day weekend. The earnings reports are providing a good prop at this point but you have to wonder if the same type of FUD that affected the markets last week won't repeat itself soon.

Of course, I thought the crash of '87 was the beginning of the "Big One" so you can see my track record.....:^)

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 20, 2000.

investor -

You obviously don't hang around in many investment chat rooms or b-boards. My postings are brevity itself in comparison.

Jim -

Funny how quickly the ad hominem stuff starts, isn't it?

Hey, remember this joke from Winter 1987:

Q: What's the best way to get your broker's attention?

A: Just say, "Oh, waiter!!"

Messed up a lot of plans, it did.

I agree that tomorrow looks like a consolidation day and will probably finish with another mid-size (1-2%) loss. Consensus seems to be that there's resistance at 4000, so a re-test of the recent low seems fairly likely in the next week to ten days. If it holds, that's a nice "W-bottom" formed and the market will likely hunt up to 4000 again and re-test that resistance. If it doesn't, 2900 is the next stop.

I just hope a number of folks took last week as a warning and kicked the margin habit.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 20, 2000.

You waited a lot longer than I did before leaving the market, eyes_open. I went the "safe" route in July of 1998. I think the Dow was in the range of 7,800 or something at the time. The market had served me well for several years, however, so I was content with my gains. The LAST time I left the market was in the early 80's, when the market went down to 600. I lost a LOT of money by staying in too long, not to mention some bad puts and calls.

Regarding getting back in, or WHEN to get back in: I'd have to analyze things pretty closely before I got back in, and I'm simply not willing to devote the time or concern to it at this point.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), April 20, 2000.

Dee:

I wonder why you were the target this time? They usually pick on me :^)

I remember that broker/waiter joke. It seems a lot funnier now than in 1987.

We had been rafting down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon for the two weeks before the crash of '87. Once you're on the river, the world could evaporate and you'd never know it - no radio, no phones, no nothing.

We got back to Las Vegas the day of the crash. I saw a paper from the previous day with a headline about the market going down something like 150 points, which was a huge drop in those days. I turned on the TV in our room and there was Dan Rather talking about 1929 and how today's drop was worse. I couldn't believe that the market could go down 500 points in one day. It gave me a whole new perspective on investing.

I missed the signs that the market would recover though. The casino was packed that night and no one seemed a bit concerned. Apparently, the same people who aren't all that risk adverse in the market like spending time in casinos too....:^)

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 20, 2000.

I wonder what is worse,the Dung coming out of Havard and Yale or the Wall Street Scum?

-- Keep it up... (Thieves@work.24hrs), April 20, 2000.

Keep It Up:

You must be confused. It's the dung coming out of Yale and Harvard that ends up on Wall Street. Or did you think they came from the Double-Wide College of Cosmetolgy and Taxidermy?

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), April 20, 2000.

Well, the Nazz did indeed finish down just over 1.5%, while money jumped over to Dow blue chips and boosted it up by about the same percentage.

Intel and IBM lost ground as folks decided they didn't like what they saw from the earnings reports. Then Microsoft reported after the bell: earnings good, revenues and outlook not-so. Earnings were 43 cents, beating expectations by 2 cents. Revenue grew by 23% compared with the year-ago quarter (less than expected), and CFO John Connors said in a statement that the company was "guarded" about its near-term growth outlook.

So now we have three (count 'em, 3!) bellwethers looking less than wonderful. Expect the air to continue leaking out of Tech stocks next week. We've pretty much got all the good news out the way, so a downward trend seems likely. Expect people to digest a few salient facts, such as the reality that Win2000 is not going to boost MSFT's bottom line anywhere near as much as hoped, that Big Blue is obviously having trouble selling hardware and software to companies that stocked up late last year, and that Intel cut R&D spending(!) in order to make their earnings number.

Today's "Fun with Math" exercise:

Companies with triple-digit P/E ratios typically lose 90% of their valuation once the market corrects. Pick your favorite high-flyer and figure out where its price will land when P/Es (for good companies) get reset to their historical levels of 15 to 25.

-- DeeEmBee (macbeth1@pacbell.net), April 20, 2000.

abc

Don't sweat the formating. We knew what you meant. Maybe I should go back over my investments instead! (I'm sure I got out when the DOW was in the 11K range).

Everyone else

So, what your all saying is, diversity is GOOD, The Trend is your friend, and my friend is saying "stay out".

Thanks for the input

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.2all), April 21, 2000.