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GemsWith enough inside information and a million dollars, you can go broke in a year.-- Warren Buffett

If youre not making a profit, then youre not in tune with the market.-- Bill Williams

The first rule of trading is: don't get caught in a situation in which you can lose a greatdeal of money for reasons you don't understand.

-- Bruce Kovner

A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader isnot going to want to transform himself. Thats the kind of thing winning traders do.

-- Ed Seykota

When a falling stock becomes a screaming buy because it cannot conceivably drop further,try to buy it 30 percent lower.

-- Al Rizzo

It is critical that we never disconnect equity investing from financial instrument investing.Remember that in both cases the underlying instrument is valued as "the present value ofits future returns discounted for risk." The difference with a growth stock is that investorstemporarily forego receiving their present returns, preferring to reinvest them to gain aneven higher rate of return some time in the future. As long as the perception is that the pieis getting bigger, it is better to be in equity because of its ability to grow bigger (somethinga bond does not have). But eventually the equity must "pay off" at this higher rater ofreturn.

What makes this very confusing is that a stock never exists in the present. It is always abet on a future outcome. In an important way stocks only exist in the future, not in thepresent. This can set your head spinning, but it is deeply and fundamentally true.Practically, it turns out not to affect buy and sell decisions in any new way, butphilosophically it is a biggie.

-- Geoffrey Moore

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The public may boo me, but when I go home and think of my money, I clap.-- Horace

To me, the "tape" is the final arbiter of any investment decision. I have a cardinal rule:Never fight the tape!

-- Martin Zweig

When everybody starts looking really smart, and not realizing that a lot of it was luck, Iget scared.

-- Raphael Yavneh

Good judgment is usually the result of experience, and experience frequently is the resultof bad judgment.

-- Robert Lovell

There have been three great inventions since the beginning of time. The fire, the wheel,and central banking.

-- Will Rogers

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whetherit's the same problem you had last year.

-- John Foster Dulles

Chance favors the informed mind.-- Louis Pasteur

When an old man dies, a library burns down.-- African proverb

The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high youbounce when you hit bottom.

-- Gen'l George S Patton

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Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is morecommon than unrewarded talent. Education alone will not: the world is full of educatedfailures. Persistence alone is omnipotent.

-- Calvin Coolidge

Wall Street's graveyards are filled with men who were right too soon.-- William Hamilton

Spend at least as much time researching a stock as you would choosing a refrigerator.-- Peter Lynch

Wait for the first-class jewels, Gigi.-- Lerner and Loewe

In this game, the market has to keep pitching, but you don't have to swing. You can standthere with the bat on your shoulder for six months until you get a fat pitch.

-- Warren Buffett

Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.-- Winston Churchill

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it andstaying with that plan.

-- Tom Landry

Ladder ofAchievement:100% I did.90% I will.80% I can.70% I think I can.60% I might.50% I think I might.40% What is it?30% I wish I could.20% I don't know how.10% I can't.0% I won't.

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I don't believe in intuition. When you get sudden flashes of perception, it is just the brainworking faster than usual.

-- Katherine Anne Porter

Until the lens of experience focuses information, it does almost no good. No matter howmuch the marketing machines of the Information Age would have us think otherwise,information by itself isn't power: knowledge is. And turning information into knowledgerequires more time, experience, and effort than an afternoon spent starting at a screen fullof facts.

Information is passive. To make it knowledge, you need to assimilate it. Put it in context.Understand it. Knowledge streamlines and focuses our relationship with information.Knowledge helps us avoid information we don't want or need and leaves us with the stuffwe can use.

In an age in which endless amounts of bits and bytes are always available, it's a dauntingtask to spot the worthwhile stuff. It's easy for the Net to overwhelm us or lull us into themisconception that simply having access to something is as good as knowing it.

-- Michael Penwarden

Sometimes it takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from batting myhead against the wall.

-- Joseph Conrad

Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will.Finagle's Law: If anything goes wrong, anything you do will only make it worse.A billion here, a couple of billion there -- first thing you know it adds up to be real money.-- Everett M. Dirksen

What you don't know won't hurt you, but it may make you act pretty stupid.-- Anon

Omnia potest pedere (you can lose 'em all).-- J.P. Muller

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; skill is knowing how to do it; virtue is doing it.-- David Start Jordan

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Certainly you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Quite a few of them are busyfooling you.

-- Anon

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than anyone.-- Dostoevski

The market is never wrong and it cannot be defeated. It is selfless. It does not experiencefeelings of victory or defeat. The market is a cold battlefield and its participants areengaged in a life-or-death battle against themselves.

-- Josh Lukeman

Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it isthe voice of God.

-- Mark Twain

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.-- Bertrand Russell

Against stupidity the gods themselves fight in vain.-- Johann Schiller

Most of our so-called reasoning consists of finding arguments for going on believing as wealready do.

-- J.H. Robinson

The obscure we see eventually; the completely apparent takes longer.-- Edward R. Murrow

If you really are interested in getting enlightened, one way would be to go off to Tibet,crawl in a cave, and sit there meditating for thirty years. Another equally good way butmuch, much faster is to trade the S&P . . .

-- Bill Williams

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The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot wrongquestions.

-- A. Jay

I have always liked bird dogs better than kennel dogs. You know, ones who will get outand hunt for food rather than sit and yelp.

-- "Engine Charlie" Wilson, once Secretary of Defense

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.-- Edgar Bronfman

After you have done the best you can, to hell with it.-- Joseph P. Kennedy

If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average.-- Anon

In 1936, British economist John Maynard Keynes gave the best description of the stockmarket I've ever heard. He said stock market investors are like judges in a beauty contest.But the idea of this beauty contest is not to pick the prettiest girl, but rather to pick the girlthat all other judges will think is the prettiest.

This simple metaphor is profound because it reveals the truth: For all of our study of theeconomy and companies, it is subjective perception -- not objective reality -- that setsstock prices.

And it's perplexing because, as Keynes pointed out, all of the judges are fully aware of thetrue nature of the contest and act accordingly. Each judge knows that he's a player in anfabulously complex game of psych and double-psych, an infinite regress of figuring outwhat the other guy is thinking you're thinking he's thinking you're thinking he's thinking,and so on and so on ...

-- Don Luskin

The man who has to ask what a yacht costs has no business owning one.-- J.P. Morgan

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If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to behappier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happierthan they are.

-- Montesquieu

Ford and the world Fords with you. Rolls and you Rolls alone.-- The Earl of Birkenhead

When the chips are down, money counts more than religion.-- John F. Kennedy

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.-- Anon

To suppose that the value of a common stock is determined by a corporation's earningsdiscounted by the relevant interest rate and adjusted for the marginal tax rate is to forgetthat people have burned witches, gone to war on a whim, risen to the defense of JosephStalin, and believed Orson Welles when he told them over the radio that the Martians hadlanded.

-- James Grant

As an individual trader or investor, you must make up your own mind whether to join thebattle or stand aside until it is over. If you are joining the battle, choose sides carefully andlimit the amount of resources you are willing to commit. It is better to plan ahead andanticipate when others will join the battle to turn the tide of the conflict. You know that ifyour market breaches a particular price level, others will be prompted to join the fray andturn the tide so the opposing side capitulates. Focus on the overall goal of why you areinvolved in the market in the first place.

-- Dean Lundell

Waiting for a stock to rebound isn't long-term investing; it's denial.-- Anon

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On message boards:If an individual with pathological ideation is surrounded by people who challenge thepathological position there will be a reasonable probability that the position will bere-evaluated, rejected and a healthier one put in place.

However if the pathological position has external supports -- people who similarly hold that

position -- there is often very little chance to have that position re-evaluated, let alonehaving it modified in a healthier way.

This is why cults are so powerful an influence on their members. It seems that for manybuying a stock is similar to joining a cult. Instead of being investors -- open, alert,considering all information concerning their holding -- they become cultists, cheering thestock in spite of negative data and wanting to kill the messenger who brought it.

They find cult mates on Internet message boards and in a kind of ritualistic behavior, postwishful predictions like 'up 10% by next month' or 'big takeover coming.' These posts havenothing to do with fact, but by posting them the action itself serves to reassure them andother cultists that all is well and that they have done something in the service of the cult --e.g. the post and prediction.

This is similar to primitive peoples who during a drought do a rain dance. It gives themsomething to do to validate their beliefs and it reaffirms the cultist hope.

-- Jerome Silverman

Don't gamble. Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it til it goes upthen sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it.

-- Will Rogers

When everyone assumes, at least implicitly, that the market is an actuarial table, that thepast is inevitably prologue, and that common stocks, held over an extended period, willalways produce higher returns than bonds--and at lower risk--then stocks inevitably will bepriced to reflect that certainty. At that point, however, the certainty becomes that stockswill produce lower future returns, and at higher risk at that.

-- John Bogle

The stock market doesn't beat around the bush. It doesn't give A's for effort. It doesn'tsay, "Everbody is special, just in their own way". The stock market offers direct,quantitative confirmation of exactly how much of a loser you are.

-- Joey Anuff and Gary Wolf

In this business, you never stop learning. Let me put it another way. If you stop learning,you're on your way to going out of business. Wall Street is a tough teacher but also a goodteacher. If you have any weakness -- arrogance, laziness, stinginess, cowardice,procrastination -- the market will zero in on that weakness and make you pay dearly.

-- Richard Russell

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Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.-- Aaron Levenstein

Most of us believe that money-making is a game that is played with forces outsideourselves, forces such as the economy, the stock market, interest rates, the Fed,

government policies, employment statistics and the like. But as you move along a spiritualpath and begin to get a taste of the power of your invisible self, you discover thatmoney-making is merely a game that you play with yourself.

-- Wayne Dyer

If you've got Nasdaq stock, it's like having confederate money.-- Robin Williams

If you think that all stocks can be characterized as BUY, SELL, or HOLD, you areshort-changing yourself. PASS is a legitimate category, and it is frequently the end result ofstock research...

-- Bob Green

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.Is this kind of stuff [chat boards] helpful? Yeah, I guess, if your trading decisions areusually made in a men's locker room right after half-price "kegger night."

-- Gary Smith

Big success is not built on success. It's built on failure, disaster and catastrophe. It's aboutlearning to turn it around.

-- Sumner Redstone

One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutelynothing, unless there is something to do. Most people always have to be playing; theyalways have to be doing something. They can't just sit there and wait for something new todevelop. I wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over thereand pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime. Even people who lose money in the marketsay, 'I just lost my money, now I have to do something to make it back.' No, you don't. Youshould sit there until you find something.

-- Jim Rogers

You have to respect the market like you respect the sea. You can't control it all.-- Michael Eggly

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Grandmasters rely on illogical thinking, but they call it the element of surprise. Generallythey start the game according to the rulebook, but then they make a move which isunexpected: It is illogical. This causes the game to go into uncharted waters. The winner isthe one who navigates the new terrain the best. The more illogical a master's move seems,the bigger advantage he has, because his opponent becomes totally confused. The weakopponent thinks only inside the box. By the time the confused victim figures out what has

happened, he is history ... Likewise, the markets prey on the confused trader who playsonly by the established rules. The more unpredictable and chaotic a market is, the more atrue master wins. He is able to transcend rules and logic to another level of understanding.

-- Leonard Kreicas

I've been at this for a week or so and I haven't made a cent.-- Message Board Post

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the Net and he won'tbother you for weeks.

-- Andrew Grove

Trigger-happy traders are prone to shooting themselves in the foot.-- Brad Barber and Terrance Odean

Financial forecasting is like driving a car blindfolded with directions from a passenger whois looking out the back window.

-- Werner De Bondt

We are all swimming on an investment beach roiled by waves of noise. Be very careful youdon't mistake a line of rogue waves for the turning of the tide.

-- William J. Bernstein

Even the most brilliant mathematical geniuses will never be able to tell us what the futureholds. In the end, what matters is the quality of our decisions in the face of uncertainty.

-- Peter L. Bernstein

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. Theothers are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December,August and February.

-- Mark Twain

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There is always free cheese in a mousetrap.-- Mark Skousen

Whenever you think you've found the key to the market, some SOB changes the lock.-- G.M. Loeb

I divide the investing public into three distinct groups: Thrill Seekers, Guru Groupies, andPrudent Investors . . . Thrill Seekers think that money is fun. They get a visceral rush fromplaying the markets. They are performance-oriented risk takers who seek aggressivereturns . . . What Guru Groupies really want is what Charles Givens promised them in hisbest-selling book, Wealth Without Risk. Remember the old saying about how everyonewants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die? These investors believe they can get toinvestment heaven without taking any risk . . . Thrill Seekers and Guru Groupies believethey can beat the market with the right information or the right guru. Prudent Investorsbelieve the market can beat them.

-- Steve Moeller

Education is what you get when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get whenyou don't.

-- Arthur Levitt

Technical analysis provides ample opportunities to deceive yourself into seeing what youwant.

-- Alexander Elder

The way to solve excessive speculation is not to restrict access to the markets. Thatactually makes matters worse. The true problem with speculation is that people are stupidand they don't recognize that they're stupid, so they repeat the problem every 20 years. Sothe solution is education, understanding, and access to information.

-- Peter Stern

The first rule of holes: If you are in one, stop digging.-- Anon

The principles of successful stock speculation are based on the supposition that people willcontinue in the future to make the mistakes that they have made in the past.

-- T F Woodlock

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You cannot regulate against stupidity.-- Cromwell Coulson

Risk used to be quantifiable. Now risk is a purely a qualitative function on a day-to-daybasis. There's no corporate development that justifies a 30% or more intraday move,

whether up or down. That is simply the measurement of risk being thrown out the windowand qualified based on market psychology and herd, gang-tackle mentality.

-- Scott Bleier

You know it's a bull market when readers start to ask what skills they need to trade for aliving.

-- Gary Smith

Q:Before the herd starts moving, any opinions out there?A: With all due respect, you are the herd .-- Message board post

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one'sself-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their ownself-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important,cannot learn at all.

-- Thomas Szasz

In a bear market money returns to its rightful owners.-- Anon

When I was 20 I thought I knew all the answers.By the time I was 30 I had realized perhaps I didn't know ALL the answers.By the time I was 40 I had to admit I didn't even understand all the questions.

-- Mark Twain

Potential .400 hitters in the stock market are falling short of their goal because growingnumbers of today's investors are sufficiently educated, sophisticated, and informed to blocktheir way, just as batters capable of achieving a .400 average have fallen short of that goalsince the old days because defending teams have developed sufficient skill to block theirway. No successor to Peter Lynch has appeared on the scene, and even Warren Buffett'stouch is not as magic as it used to be.

-- Peter Bernstein

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Professionals trade with the dominant market group, while beginners try to forecast thefuture.

-- Alexander Elder

Investing is not a win-win game. It is a win-lose game. Everyone who plays the game is inthe stock market to win. They are not in the stock market to make the world a better placeor to help your net worth. They are in the stock market to make as much money as theycan for themselves. If you buy stock that a professional or a company insider is selling,only one of you will end up being right.

-- Peter Siris

Becoming sloppy with stops and lazy in research are typical behaviors of a loser on a luckystreak.

-- Alexander Elder

Okay, so the web has been hyped to the pointy of absurdity by fanatical true believers, butwhen you strip away the frenzied predictions of the digirati, you're still left with aninescapable fact: The Internet will change the relationship between consumers andproducers in ways more profound than you can yet imagine. The Internet is not justanother marketing channel; it's not just another advertising medium; it's not just a way tospeed up transactions. The Internet is the foundation for a new industrial order. . . TheWeb is not about push; it's about suck. Online consumers can suck out of cyberspacewhatever interests them and leave behind whatever doesn't . . . Make no mistake, the webwill drive the last nail into the coffin of set prices. Customer ignorance--about prices andrelative product performance--has been a profit center for many companies. But consumersare about to get much, much better informed--and the consequences will be awe inspiring .

. . The Net is a noose for mediocrity. But it's a humongous springboard for products andservices that are truly great and truly consumer-friendly. Consumers everywhere, stand upand cheer!

-- Gary Hamel and Jeff Sampler

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.-- Dorothy Parker

Don't get me started on the subject of investment message boards. These online financialhootenannies are dangerous at best, and at worst the investment version of poisonedKool-Aid . . . the most active message boards generally turn into giant cheerleadingsessions that have little tolerance for anybody who dares to suggest that a company mightbe facing trouble.

-- Herb Greenberg

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The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.-- Katharine Whitehorn

When Barbary Pirates demand a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'tributemoney'. When the Mafia demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it's called 'the

protection racket'. When the State demands a fee for allowing you to do business, it'scalled 'sales tax'.

-- Jeff Daiell

Lack of money is the root of all evil.-- George Bernard Shaw

People think of trading as playing tennis against a wall . . . They can position themselvesperfectly, and they can return the ball just right. But when they trade, it is real tennis thatthey are playing against very skilled players, including professional players.

-- Meir Statman

To steal from a thief is not theft. It is merely irony.-- Zorro

Other investment manias come and go. The Internet stock mania, however, is a bit likehaving crazy relatives who keep coming back to visit--and each time, their behavior seems

more outrageous than before . . . The numbers are becoming so large in this latestInternet stock trading craze that it's hard to imagine that the money changing hands isreal. It feels more like a big Monopoly game, complete with multicolored play currency.

-- Tom Petruno

The roadrunner is a good metaphor for the momentum stock, and Wile E. Coyote for themomentum investor.

-- DbPhoenix

It's morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money.-- Canada Bill Jones

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.-- Kin Hubbard

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Long-run gains in economic efficiency have nothing whatsoever to do with the short-runtrend of securities prices. At the peak of every bull market, optimists justify the extremevaluations with panegyrics about the technological transformation of industry. Just thinkback to the 1920s, when people were saying that electric power, radio, and aviation wouldrevolutionize the world economy. Those prophecies came true, but in 1929 the marketcrashed anyway.

-- Martin Fridson

If you don't make money off of it, it had better be either a religious experience or a hobby.-- Lance Cooper

I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.-- Jackie Mason

It's still a little too early to be pushing the panic button. But it's probably a good time tomake sure you know where the panic button is.

-- Nicholas Perna

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.-- Senator Everett Dirksen

I'm always amazed at how people seem to think that selling is an irreversible decision andthat they can't repurchase a stock that they just sold. At times it can make very goodsense to repurchase at a price higher than what you just sold at. Emotionally, however, itis very tough to do so since you are at some level admitting you made a mistake by sellingin the first place. It's very difficult not to have an emotional reaction to repurchasing astock at a higher price, but the best thing you can do is forget your prior actions andcontinue to follow a set methodology.

I was reading an article on something called "the endowment effect" which seems relevanthere. A professor gave half his class coffee mugs. He asked the half of the class thatreceived the mugs to name a price they would be willing to sell it the mugs for to the otherhalf of the class. He asked the other half of the class that did not get a mug to name aprice they would be willing to pay. The average price that those who received a mug wouldbe willing to sell for was consistently about twice what those that didn't receive a mug werewilling to pay.

The conclusion is that once someone owns an object, be it a mug or a stock, they have avested interest in it and tend to place a higher value on it than they would if they didn'town it in the first place. This helps explain why so many buy-and-holders have a deathgrip on their stocks. Once you own something, human nature is to convince yourself thatyou did the right thing by buying it and, therefore, its perceived value becomes greaterthan it was when it was owned by someone else.

-- David Barney

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The most important financial decisions, I now realize, often have precious little to do withmoney. If you smoke, drink heavily, eat to excess and never exercise, you probably won'tneed that impressive retirement nest egg. If your only hobby is shopping, you will find ittough to be a good saver.

-- Jonathan Clements

I make up the rules to a game, then I attempt to play it. If I appear to be losing, then Ichange the rules.

-- Robert Snow

Has anyone done a study of when it is best to buy a sock that is going to split? A few postsback it looked like somebody thought it was better to buy after the split? Comments?

I have actually done my own personal study on this topic. In general, I have found that itdoes not pay to buy a sock at all if, in fact, you know that it's going to split in the nearfuture. And, while the price of a given sock may appear relatively inexpensive with a split,you should probably buy one at the pre-split price. Now, certainly we all know thatvirtually every sock splits at some time during its life cycle, and usually the ultimate timingdepends on two primary variables: walking and wearing patterns of the owner, andfrequency of washing. To wit, I usually walk without putting excessive pressure on the heelor undo emphasis on the ball of the foot. I've also tried less frequent washing, but whilethis factor does noticeably extend the life of a given sock, it does have obvious if notaltogether repugnant side effects.

My best advice to you in your dilemma over sock splits would be to trim your toenails moreoften, cutting in a straight line to avoid ingrown toenails. The big toe is of crucialimportance here. You'll find that, over time, most sock splits have less to do with

confidence on the part of the manufacturer's management, or even overall trends in thesock market, but instead with proper podiatric grooming on the part of the owner.

-- "ChazDogz"

Some investors have trouble making decisions to buy or sell. They are unsure becausethey really don't know what they are doing. They do not have a plan, a set of principles orrules, to guide them; therefore, they vacillate and can't make up their minds.

-- Wm O'Neil

One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing time and time again, andexpecting a different result. By this definition many investors are insane.

-- Jim O'Shaughnessy

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Just because the technology makes buying and selling easier (in some cases a lot easier), itis as important as ever to carefully define your financial goals, to chose some practices thatwill help you reach those goals and to stick to them--even when it gets really tempting topoint, click and trade just because it's so easy to do.

-- Joel Dreyfuss

Never be in a hurry to do something stupid.-- Lee Richartz

After 1960 the disaster of 1929-1934 seemed to be fading from the collective socialmemory, and once again market players began to compete with each other in search ofmaximum returns. The mutual fund was all-powerful, as it is today. "Go Go" fundmanagers outgunned each other with successively more aggressive investment strategies.Technology (or what sounded like it) was the favorite impulse purchase of the day. By1961 it became clear that concepts or even just words relating to "electronics" or "silicon"multiplied the market value of a company.

The name was the game. There were a host of "trons" such as Astron, Dutron, Vulcatron,and Transitron, and a number of "onics" such as Circuitronics, Supronics,Videotronics, andseveral Electrosonics companies. Leaving nothing to chance, one group put together thewinning combination Powertron Ultrasonics. The prices commanded in the market by thesecompanies was unbelievable.

Hardly a year later, in 1962, the bubble burst. The market declined slowly throughout theearly part of the year, and by the end of May it cracked downward. Not surprisingly, the"tronics" stocks and other growth stocks took the lion's share of the beating. BoontonElectronics, for example, declined to $1.62 from its 1961 high of $24.5.

-- Jacob Freifeld

What a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind.-- Dan Quayle

The Alligator Principle is based on the way an alligator eats: the more the victim tries tostruggle, the more the alligator gets. Imagine an alligator has you by the leg; it clampsyour leg in its mouth and waits while you struggle. If you put one of your arms in thevicinity of its mouth while fighting to get your leg free, it lunges and then has your arm and

leg in its clutches. The more you struggle, the more the alligator takes you in.

So if an alligator ever gets you by the leg, remember that your only chance is to sacrificethe leg and drag yourself away. Translated to market terms, the principle is when youknow you are wrong, close your position! Don't rationalize, hope, pray, or anything else,

just get out . . . don't change your position, hedge it, or anything else; just take the lossand get out!

-- Victor Sperandeo

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Should you trust a stockbroker who's married to a travel agent?The real danger in the individual message boards is when the stock begins to fall--herdmentality at its finest. At first the members tell each other how it is just a small correction("The rocket ship will soon be blasting upward, just wait"). After a significant one-day loss,the tone gets even more emphatic ("How can the market actually be punishing this

company--don't they know its worth twice this much?"). Around this time, people start the"I doubled my position today, what a bargain" posts. You can bet you'll find a number ofposts blaming (take your pick) (a) the analysts that follow the company, (b) themarket-makers, and of course (c) the shorts for the recent stock performance. Also, one ofthe leaders of the board will call the company and post a detailed transcript of theconversation where the CEO states that nothing is fundamentally wrong with the company,so on, and so forth. This usually brings on another wave of buying by the regular membersof the message board, as they finally burn up their remaining funds, or even worse, go onmargin--throwing good money after bad on a losing proposition.

By this time, all rationality is gone (along with a good bit of money) and despair begins toset in. However, their pride won't let them admit the mistake they've made, cut their

losses, and start looking for a better company to invest in--"Well, I don't actually lose anymoney if I don't sell so I'll just wait for the price to recover".

-- "DPGurney"

Lessons are repeated until they are learned.--Iyanla Vanzant

Bears don't live on Park Avenue.-- Bernard Baruch

I never buy at the bottom and I always sell too soon.-- Nathan Rothschild

A Harvard professor once asked his students to do a special report on fish. His scholarswent to the library, read books about fish, and then wrote their expositions The studentswere shocked when, after turning in their papes, the professor tore them up and threwthem in the waste basket. When they asked what was wrong with the reports, theprofessor said, "If you want learn anything about fish, sit in front of a fish bowl and look atfish."

-- William J O'Neil

There is an impressive and growing body of evidence demonstrating that investors andspeculators don't necessarily learn from experience. Emotion overrides logic time aftertime.

-- David Dreman

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Personally, I think everybody who predicts the future with a straight face should berequired (by federal law) to change out of the business suit, wrap him/herself in a gypsyshawl, wear one of those pointed wizard's hats with a picture of a crescent moon on it, andmake conjuring sounds over a crystal ball. That way, everybody would know exactlywhat's going on and how much credibility to give the answer.

-- Robert N. Veres

Nobody knows anything. All of them -- the journalists, the commentators, the brokers, thetraders, the analysts -- are feeling their way in a blizzard, squinting through the snow,straining amid the white noise to make out the next trend or market movement or sizzlingstock. They traffic in a strange, souplike mixture of facts and gossip and rumor, and whiletheir guidance can be useful, they are just as often taken by surprise, faked out by themarket's twists and turns, their piles of research and lifetime of learning suddenly renderedirrelevant. They talk to one another, milk one another, belittle one another, desperatelysearching for someone who knows just a little bit more about the stock that everyone willbe buzzing about tomorrow. It is a mutual manipulation society that affects anyone with adirect or indirect stake in the market, which is to say nearly everyone in America.

-- Howard Kurtz

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed,in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer

The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes aroundwearing overalls looking like hard work.

-- Thomas A. Edison

I take the making of these charcoal layouts very seriously. Too many novices wait until theyare on the canvas before trying to solve many of their problems.

--Norman Rockwell

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.-- John Maynard Keynes

You do not have to be more intelligent than other traders -- only better disciplined.-- Alexander Elder

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People are overconfident. Psychologists have determined that overconfidence causespeople to overestimate their knowledge, underestimate risks, and exaggerate their abilityto control events. Does overconfidence occur in investment decision-making? Securityselection is a difficult task. It is precisely this type of task at which people exhibit thegreatest overconfidence.

-- John R. Nofsinger

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as itstruggled to force its body through that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as itcould, and it could go no further.

So to help the butterfly he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of thecocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, thewings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract intime.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with aswollen body and shriveled wings.

It never was able to fly.What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoonand the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were nature'sway of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be readyfor flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If we were allowed to gothrough our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us.

We would not be as strong as what we could have been.We could never fly! --Anon via Joe Scott


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