From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Jun 12 2003 - 01:02:11 MDT
On Wednesday 11 June 2003 15:48, gts wrote:
nings and has a bad debt/equity ratio.
>
> My advice now, to myself and to my friends and family, is to stay long.
> Never go short and never sell unless you really need the money. Own a
> reasonably but not overly diversified portfolio. In the long run the market
> rewards investors according to the level of risk they take (on the long
> side).
>
I don't believe this advice makes much sense in a time of radically increasing
change and volatility. It becomes much more delicate to predict which
companies are going to be around for the long haul. Too many good companies
are now dead or dying with their stock price less than half a penny on the
dollar of when they were purchased if they are alive at all. At even highly
optimistic yearly growth it would take more years for such stocks to come
back to par value than I have before I retire. It would be very foolish to
take long side risk on such. A rule of thumb that makes sense to me: If
you had the money in hand today that you have in this investment would you
buy this instrument? If the answer is "No" then sell at least half of it
immediately.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jun 12 2003 - 01:09:46 MDT