falconguard said:
Wouldn't a good contrarian fund do the same thing for you?
Rule number one to remember in stock investing:
"All the 'A' team stock investors are sitting on their own tropical islands sipping rum umbrella drinks and bopping bronzed tropical hotties of their preferred sex."
What is left?
--The B team are guys like Buffet snf Pickett who do it for fun and require $100k to get into their funds.
--The C team are managing the $500-2500 entry mutual funds, most of which do not do as well as the market indices like the DOW, NASDAQ, S&P 500.
Here's some more of the rules that apply right now:
"Never try and catch a falling knife."
-- Unless you understand the underlying fundamentals driving a stock down do not try and guess it's bottom. Wait for its fundamentals (price and PE ratio) and price pattern (obvious support level with a 3% top side break out) to reverse and start back up.
"The stock market is AC coupled."
--It responds to impulses, not steady conditions. News reelases on comapny earnings oil prices, interest rates, international tensions, obscenely large budget and trade deficits are impulses driving the market down. Until most of these stabilize do not expect stable growth in stock prices.
"Whatever goes up must come down."
--Self explanatory. It refers to the business cycle. A three year business cycle on PC replacement is the wishful thinking of the computer and software manufacturers. There are 180k desktops where I work plus 1000's of task specific PCs. We refresh desktops every 5 years on average. This is a large company with lots of $$$$s. Small and midsize businesses won't refresh until the machines can no longer perform the function they were purchased for. That can be 10 years. We are running 10-15 year old machines (yes - windows 98, P II, 5MB HD's etc, I am currently resurrecting a dedicated machine that runs win 3.1).
"Bears make money, and bulls make money, but hogs never do."
--Hog thinking patterns are - 'the price has gone up it will keep going up' or 'the price has dropped sharply, now is the time to buy more'.
"You invest in stocks, you don't marry them 'until death do you part'."
-- If it turns down unexpectedly or if it's fundamentals are poor ditch it, FAST! (Is the stock - energy intensive, interest rate sensitive, on the down side of business cycle, have a hot new competitor, have just too much competition, etc.) Then stay out until the fundamentals reverse.
"Buy on the rumor sell, on the announcement."
-- Intels rumor and announcement have come and gone. All they did was stop the price decline around $19. MS rumor and announcement have been out there so long any value it had is ancient history.
I have more of these stock quotes but they are on my local HD at work. I'll dig them up Monday.
Back on topic -
I agree that Intel's new CPU product line is very promising (in spite of my AMD affections). I'm especially interested in the energy conservation promises. But I try not to get too excited about vaporware. When I can go buy one from newegg, or better yet at Frye's, I'll start getting excited.
Back off topic-
But Intel is a diversified company which means Flash, chipset, desktop, server sales all have to come up for their stock to come up. That means a booming, strife free world economy or the emergence of a "compelling new application". Something with the business world impact of Lotus 1-2-3 or the first fully integrated MS Office Suite. The Laptop market is the one "compelling new product" that has been keeping the PC hardware industry out of recession and bankruptcy.
In the mean time people are starting to cut inventory of the last gen Intel products in anticipation for demand for the new product. That means Intels supply channel sales will be soft as they are drained. i.e. More earnings disappointments until the new product line volume ramps up late this year or
early next year.
As for MS? Bill Gates knows that his cash cow is dying. That's why he is trying to work his way into the consumer electronics market. Unfortunately all his consumer product lines are bleeding red ink and have been since inception. He can't "sell" windows/office in third world markets because they cost months worth of wages for the average person which means Linux or bootleg windows are the alternatives.
Anyone see peace breaking out in the near future?
Anyone seeing SUVs abondoned by the side of the road as their owners flock to buy fuel efficient cars?
Anyone see the USA government cutting it's budget deficit?
Anyone see USA citizens offering to pay extra for domestically made tech toys?
Anyone see Asia and South America, Africa or the Middle East rigorously enforcing copyright and patent inmfringement laws?
Anyone see USA companies opening new plants in the USA instead of in Asia?
The underlying market fundamentals are weak and have been since Katrina and Rita started the current oil/gasoline scare which is being worsened by civil wars in 3 significant oil producing countries with more on the way.
PS Probably should be moved to the green room.