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Dot Comedy
Taking Stock
by Kent Lewis

I’m not an adrenaline junkie. Sure, I’ve gone skydiving, raced cars, summitted snowy peaks and returned un-rewound videotapes to Blockbuster. But I’ve never purchased stock in a dot com, and I’ve never day traded stock. Now THAT’s risky.

Maybe it’s the enlightenment of working with Internet startups on a daily basis, or maybe it’s a handful of accounting and economics classes in college; but I have refused to contribute to the speculation and hype surrounding Internet stocks. I also refuse to check my stocks every five minutes to see how many sixteenths my shares have increased or decreased.

It would seem that I’ve lost out on the Amazon.coms, Qualcomms and Yahoos, but I’ve also lost out on the "correction" that’s plagued the market and wiped out this year’s gains. I’ll stick with the relatively safer technology blue chips and hedge my bets with a few shares in coffee futures and the WWF.

Unfortunately, the recent "correction" has affected the entire market; even companies that sell non-Internet-related product like toilet paper and industrial strength dirt have seen declines. I guess too many experienced investors failed to factor in the cyclical spring sell off and profit taking to cover taxes from last year’s gains.

Of course the overvaluation issue has been the buzz for years. It’s amazing it took this long for investors to figure out no revenues and no profits are not a healthy investment opportunity. I was this close to starting my own dot com: ihaveabridgeiwanttosellyou.com, taking it public and using the cash to acquire real companies, customers and market share. Oh well, I’ll stick to my job and sell my domain to a speculator.

Regardless, it’s time to clean out all those trendy day traders’ bank accounts and get back to solid, long term investing. It’s good for the economy; it’s good for business.

The paper losses on my portfolio don’t worry me, because I won’t sell anytime soon, in fact, it’s probably a good time to buy. With the proceeds, I can pay all those penalty fees to Blockbuster.