[tabs]

Well #42 I have to agree with some of the things U have to say about retirement. A good friend of mine who has since passed owned his own business, retired (BTW he was a great golfer and lived in Pasadena after golf he would go and hang out at the Peppermill restruant) was in the stock market, and was always dabbling in guns, watches or cars. On the side he repaired golf clubs and gave lessons till the day he died at 86.

Stocks are just another form of Asset....whether it be RE, Bonds, Cars (collectable), Guns, Art, Gold, Oil even Cash. THEY ALL Fluxuate in value and are cyclical in nature. It's funny that when one is depressed another one is doing well.....money flows to where a decent return can be made...Right now the stock market is HEAVILY DEPRESSED and it take a real act of faith to put money into it...thus the analogy of being a LONER.....the herd at least in SO CAL has been buying RE. Prices are very strong right now and the projection is that they will continue to do so for the remainder of the year. However in 1994 you couldn't give RE away, and the place to be was in the Stock Market.

Bonds in 1998 and 1999 were also at a nadir, today you have to pay a premimum for those Bonds......thus if U had bought Bonds you not only would have collected your Interest but you have had CAPITAL APPRECIATION on them as well. making well above your 3% to 6% return. But today the risk in Bonds outways the possible return.

From 1990 to 1998 the Collectable market was soft if not dead......with the decline in the Stock Market they have done well. Antique Guns seem to be the flavor of the day and have appreciated beyond belief. For instance a British made Whitworth Rifle that was used by the Confederacy as a sniper rifle in the Civil War recently sold for 72K, in 1992 a Whitworth rifle that was new in it's wooden case and had been in a Museum of Confederate artifacts sold for 5K. Quite a jump. Like all overheated markets sooner or later prices will peak the risk will out way the reward and the market will cool and fall.

By incremental "short pass" you mean a Trading market....where you buy a stock at the lower end of the trading range, watch it move 5% to 10% and run. I'm not talking about Day Trading either, which I have NEVER DONE. For instance another friend of mine bought Ford at $6.90 a share in late October today it's $10.50 a share and he has collected roughly $0.12 cents a share(1QTR) worth of dividends. He can now sell that and make a nice profit.

However at this point...incremental can mean that every month you purchase X amount of shares of Ford for example, you collect your dividend of 4% and you build a postion in that company. Since $10.50 is a lot closer to $6.90 than $60 you might assume that that the reward of holding those shares is greater than the risk. Your plan is to keep adding to your position till it reachs $20 or so. Your long term reward can be quite great...and is Ford going to go out of business? The last time an American car company nearly went under the goverment bailed it out remember Chrysler. If perchance Ford does go BK then U might as well kiss everything goodbye. Also check out how many continious QTRs Ford has paid a dividend and that will tell you the story. Thats more or less a buy and hold strategy.

Now I am going to talk about The USA Dollar as an asset.....we in America don't really appreciate how much the value of currency fluxuates in value, because our currency is so stable on the world markets (it is still the reserve currency for the world).....maybe Porsche owners do since they have to buy parts. But I can assure you people in Mexico and Brazil know that currency is like any other asset.

As I said in my orginal post most Brokers don't know anything but the party line is in other words what their employer tells them. They might as well be used car salesmen and I am sure a lot of them have gone back to that profession in the past 3 years. But their are people who have some idea or clue as to how money works .....no body has a crystal ball. If you don't know how the Stock Market works it can all appear to be a shell game or a gamblers delight.....there are no guarntees in life either except that we will all die. Real Cheery huh? But if you look at the chart for the Stock Market since 1934 it has been a nearly continious rise in value.....as America has grown economically so has the value of it's companies....and a stock is merely an abstraction for your partial ownership in a business.

Now if you really want to talk about the strategy that Proffessional Money managers (the guys who run pension funds) have used we can do that but it gets very esoteric?

I still am a believer that if you don't have any knowledge about investing your hard earned money than it is best to ask for and find some help. And it is best to ask 2nd and 3rd opinions until you have gained some experience at it, so that your not being snowed. The same thing is true in life.....if you don't know how to fix your car you find someone who does to give you some help or guidence until you learn to fix it yourself.

Now if I wanted to run a business I would ask #42 for help because he is apparently successfull at it and knows his way around the block.