Re: Oh, this is making *me* sneezy and teary...

ThosStew@aol.com
Mon, 20 Dec 1999 10:05:42 EST


In a message dated 12/18/1999 12:29:49 AM, adam@XeNT.ics.uci.edu writes:

>Will we see this business cycle -- the longest peacetime expansion in
history -- peak in a few
>months, or can it go on for a few more years? ... Just another day in the
making of history.

In the early nineties, there was a story in the paper (maybe even Fortune--I
can't remember, but I think it was in the New York Times) about the newest
craze in Japan: eating ice cream garnished with gold leaf. Friend of mine
saw the piece and shorted the Nikkei, riding it down from 30,000 to 15,000
before he took his winnings, thus missing the last drops of juice in the
lemon.

Same friend, encountered yesterday, says "market looks pretty toppy to me.
But then, it looked toppy to me 3 years ago, and I haven't been right since I
shorted the Nikkei."

As a matter of theology, the market is always right, and a stock is worth
what the market says it is worth. When it turns out to be worth more or less
tomorrow, this is NOT because the market was wrong today, because the market
is always right; what has changes is the value, not the market's acuity in
discerning it. This is something we must believe to be true regardless of
whether we believe it to be true. However, if people are starting to
sprinkle gold leaf on their Coffee Health Bar Crunch, sell

Tom