Shorting stock and the internet bubble.

[W. Kiernan]

James Baird wrote:
> 
> >
> > It doesn't look to me that this bubble is toppable with
> > rn-of-=the-mill financial tools.
> >
> 
> That's the problem when you're dealing with complete irrationality -
> you can't predict it up or down.  Amazon.com is just as irrational at
> $400 as it would be at $200, or $1000 for that matter.  If you are
> short when it finally tanks, you'll make a killing, but you could be
> wiped out by another 50-point swing in the meantime.  Better to
> remain on the sidelines.

That would be cool if I could remain on the sideline.  Just like it
would be cool if I had been, say, a factory worker in Singapore, or a
sugar harvester in Indonesia, and I had got to stay on the sidelines
during the Japan real-estate bubble.  But though that Singaporean
factory worker didn't get to rake in the profits from the Japan
real-estate bubble, right now he's paying for the fact that that bubble
popped.

When AOL is valued more than GM, what that means is that inevitably
someone's going to get his ass handed to him on a platter.  As usual,
that someone will be me, as a member of the working class.

Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net