Thursday September 28 02:01 PM EDT

Wrong!: What Could Stop the Dot-Com Decline?

Not much, says the weary trader. B y James J. Cramer

Can you believe the incredible degradation in the dot-com world? You would think that there was no one left to sell iVillage (Nasdaq: IVIL - news) or Starmedia (Nasdaq: STRM - news) . You would think that Webvan (Nasdaq: WBVN - news) couldn't go lower. You would think that ... on and on and on. And you would be wrong.

I usually abhor terms like "bull" and "bear" because they blind me to opportunity. I don't want to say, "The dot-coms are in a bear market," because I don't want to miss the chance to catch a few points, as someone might have the other day in NBC Internet (Nasdaq: NBCI - news) . But I am not a blind man. This is one vicious, horrible, miserable, whopping bear market in dot-coms. It is relentless and angry and confused. It is neverending.

I wish I could be more encouraging. But the group's once-in-a-lifetime up move has been transmogrified into a once-in-a-lifetime down move. I thought that cash would stop the decline, but these stocks trade through cash like a knife through butter. I thought that consolidation might save these stocks. But nobody wants to consolidate with anybody as everyone clings to dreams now long since past.

So what does stop them? When they take themselves private, perhaps, because they are doing better than we think?

Or when they go to zero, because, alas, they are doing worse? Nothing else seems to stop this decline.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/street/20000928/bs/what_could_stop_the_dot-com_decline__1.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), October 01, 2000

Answers

This is a good example of fads. They all come to an end.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), October 01, 2000.