The Prudent Bear is a site worthy of note if you have
significant exposure to the stock market.
- If you are 28, putting 10% of your pay each month into the market
and planning to do so until you retire – don’t stop! Over long periods, the stock market
should be a fine place for a large chunk of your money.
- But if you are retired, or
a premature curmudgeon, check out its strong “value”
perspective.
For example, I draw
your attention to Rob Peebles’ May 21 Market Summary, with this charming first line:
“A person can learn a lot by not attending a
conference.” (Which
was the model I aspired to, but did not always attain, in college.)
Bears tend to make fun of market pundits
who pooh-pooh value – especially after those pundits’ picks have turned to pooh-pooh – and so this column
dredges up Jim Cramer’s February 29, 2000, list of “Winners of the New World.”
Jim is a voluble
pundit you can see
nightly on CNBC and read
regularly in New York Magazine. His predicted
“Winners” four years ago were: Mercury
Interactive (MERQ) – $96.38 then, $45.39 today, down by nore
than half . . . Veritas Software (VRTS) – $197.88
then, $24.67 (and symbol VRTSE today), down
87.5% . . . InfoSpace.com (INSP) – down
85% from $217 then to $32.30 today . . . VeriSign
(VRSN) – down 93% from $254 to $17.75
. . . Ariba (ARBA) – down 99.3% from $264.50 to $1.88 . . . and then these
others for which I cound not readily find prices: Digital Island (ISLD) . . . Exodus (EXDS) . . .
Inktomi (INKT) . . . Sonera
(SNRA) . . . and 724 Solutions (SVNX). Some of them merged, others disappeared. Could those of you who owned them fill me
in? (Why should I do all the work?)
We certainly don’t have a
bubble of the kind we had in 2000. But
this can be a tough game, even if you attend conferences or watch the experts
on CNBC.
Tomorrow: Fun with Economic Statistics