First, as to returns, it seems to me in hindsight that one is being greedy when one expects more than a 300% appreciation.

Now moving on to the fundamentals, the problem is finding a company that sticks to the fundamentals. It always seems to me that the managers are always coming up with some scheme for merger or devolution that nearly always has as its sole focus some kind of personal return for the management, and that company directors are too often either sycophants or just bought off.

While this nonsense is usually purportedly structured in a way to reduce tax liabilities for shareholders, someplace in there there always exists that all too generous payoff for management and massive "transaction costs" for their friends.

(I wonder how much the new HP management or their friends are making on their proposed HP/Compaq merger - no one is writing about it)

Of course, you can try to buy fundamentals only to have management take leave of their senses. And if you manage to miss all of this, there's always the untimely death of a company principal.

In trying to find a company that does actually stick to fundamentals, bogus books and bogus audits don't help much either.

If you've missed all of the above, when the economy does take a downturn, those companies that did stick to fundamentals are invariably affected by the extreme difficulties of those which did not.

In conclusion, I think Bush Jr and his folks ought to 1) be looking for a way to reconcile the Abdullah Proposal with Tenet/Mitchell Track and implimenting it as soon as possible; 2) mop up al Qaeda in Africa and SE Asia,; and 3) get rid of Saddam.

Domestically, we need a realy good energy policy, with both production and conservation, and the states need highway money right now.

If the administration wants consumer confidence up, purchases up, and investment up, I think that's the way to do it. In the meantime, unemployment benefits are going to have to be extended yet once again.

ep