Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Off the Golden Gate Bridge into China Bay

Cramer says, in 2000, technology stocks all fell off a steep cliff and then kept on falling off other, steeper cliffs. Message: Cramer is through calling bottoms. He has reformed. He must be in therapy somewhere.

But I can relate, having bought JDSU all the way down, congratulating myself at the bottom for reducing my cost basis to $60. I rode MSFT from a double at $58 to despair at $15.

But I think Cramer is wrong to say, as he did, that it could happen again to the same bunch of tech stocks plus GOOG. I don't think so, and everybody is entitled to an opinion.

Back then, the tech stocks were way inflated by the Internet mania and Y2K. PE's were astronomical. I rememember hearing somebody on the Stock Channel say, "Maybe Microsoft deserves to have a PE of a hundred because of its Internet Division." Back then, these stocks needed to be taken down. But not now. There's no air in any of them, now.

If you want air, we've got it. This time around, its the financials who've been letting out the funk of 40,000 years. The most unusual suspects - Bear Stearns, Merrill, Goldman, AIG. And the poster child for geometric compression, Lehman, doing the honors from 66 to nothing. So we're seeing the horror, but it's not tech.

Last time, a lot of companies came through OK. Bloody, but unbowed. Tech will get its lumps, this time, like everybody else, but it won't be singled out for execution.

But I wish Cramer would stop talking about it. He's giving me the willies.

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