> Finally: if you're so sure [of an impending Crash], why aren't you
> buying puts?
Said the cyberbroker to the fly. US stocks are way, way overvalued relative to their historical averages. And sooner or later, financial manias which aren't supported by a real economic boom (and for all the fireworks of the US stock market, real investment in America has pretty much stagnated throughout the 1990s, and growth rates have been miserable) come to a grievous end. This isn't to say there aren't good buys in the market -- just not in the US market. Those German/Swiss multinationals are a *screaming* buy. Japanese stocks are also a good buy -- don't expect a market upturn for another decade, but eventually Japan will become Asia's biggest rentier, and the Nikkei will have nowhere to go but up.
-- Dennis