Re: [CANSLIM] Intro: Jeffrey Gasta

From: "Tom Worley" <stkguru@bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: [CANSLIM] Intro: Jeffrey Gasta
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:00:11 -0400
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Welcome to the group, Jeffrey, and thanks for posting an intro as well.
Makes it easier for us to answer questions when we know something about a
person's background or investing experience.

I think your brother-in-law is correct to avoid family discussions on
investing, fastest way to create problems.

I have not seen any performance claims by WON in many years, but I do recall
charts in the old maroon books (5 year log charts) that showed his buy/sell
recommendations sold to clients / institutions compared to several big
indexes, and the difference was substantial. In HTMMIS, he talks about doing
two things correctly: protecting your capital from big losses by using an 8%
stop loss, and knowing how to hold on to your big winners. In 2001 I did
very well at the latter, ended up netting 76%. In 2002 until June I did both
well, and was up over 20% in my IRA and nearly 60% in my margin account. But
the past two months I have done terrible at the cutting losses, and the IRA
is now down 50% (largely because I overloaded in a single stock, which
tanked). Margin acct still holding around 50% up. I have one stock bought
1/30/02 hitting a new high today, now up 88% since I bot it. I am on my
fifth trip on one stock (presently slightly profitable) that returned me on
the first 4 round trips profits from 20% to over 400%. You also have to
understand that I do not conform well to the rules of CANSLIM in my personal
investing, but still use CANSLIM heavily in selecting stocks.

Time is money for me, I have nothing to spare of either, so for me DGO is a
valuable (and very expensive) tool which saves me lots of time. I use free
sites for screening for possible watch list candidates, but rely exclusively
on DGO for charts and reviews of fundies.

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Gasta, Jeffrey" <Jeff.Gasta@marriott.com>
To: <canslim@lists.xmission.com>
Cc: "Gasta, Jeffrey" <Jeff.Gasta@marriott.com>
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2002 1:32 PM
Subject: [CANSLIM] Intro: Jeffrey Gasta


Hello,

Thank you for providing this group. It is so cool to find independent,
non-biased sources of information.  The net is great for that.

 Aside from funding my 401K with mutual funds, I'm new to investing.  My
brother-in-law is a mortgage banker and he did VERY well in the 90s by
investing.  After years of asking he finally told me that he is now using
the CANSLIM method (although he did well before he adopted this).  Also, he
won't have a dialog with him on this - in-laws are weird sometimes.  For the
past two months I've been reading IBD, IBD.com, and two of Mr. O'Neil's
books.  During the past year I have read two of John Bogle's books, read the
financial section in the Washington Post weekly and watched the market with
increasing interest.  I live in the DC metro area and am 39 years old.

My degree is in Applied Mathematics and I perform technical work daily as a
telecom. engineer.  I have no background in finance or investing.  However,
I do have strong analytical skills and like working in an environment with
rules/guidelines.  Incidentally, in the book "The Millionaire Next Door" the
authors point out that Engineers tend to do well with investing because of
their belief in and adherence to rules/laws.

Will try to lurk for a while before posting any messages.  I do have a
couple starter questions if that doesn't offend the group.  If these
questions shouldn't be asked yet, or they are answered in the archive,
please let me know.

1)  The success stories Mr. O'Neil mentions are incredible.  But he doesn't
mention how his overall portfolio (including losses) has done over the
years.  Can anyone give me guidance on independent studies and/or personal
experience with this system?  For example, a 5-year total return of 15% on
the entire portfolio that also includes the 8% loses.  Also if CANSLIM is so
profitable, why is Mr. O'Neil spending lots of his time writing books and
giving seminars?  It makes me wonder where his wealth is really coming from.

2)  I have found several "ride-the-coattails" web sites for CANSLIM.  A
quick survey of these sites seem to show that they simply regurgitate the
info. already provided by IBD and thus are not worth the price.  Any
thoughts on these sites would be appreciated.

3)  Does Daily Graphs Online really provide added value for a beginner like
me?  After viewing their tutorial I  can't figure out what they provide
beyond standard IBD membership.

Many thanks for your time!

Jeffrey Gasta
Telecommunications Engineering
Marriott International
Voice:  301.380.6204
Fax:  301.380.8649
jeff.gasta@marriott.com



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