João Leão: Economia precisa de imigrantes (e não só dos qualificados)

[Ulisses Pereira]

"Missed FleetBoston? There's More in Store"

By James J. Cramer
10/27/2003 09:11 AM EST


"The main reason I am giving myself about 18 more minutes to snap out of my FleetBoston (FBF:NYSE - commentary - research)-induced funk -- I sold the stock last week from my Action Alerts PLUS portfolio -- is that the funk precludes you from finding the next FleetBoston.

There is a price to pay for not going through remonstrations: You are bound to make the same mistake again.


But there is an even higher price to pay for allowing the remonstrations to take on a level of self-indulgent ugliness: There's no way you can catch the next big hit that will allow your head to clear and your profits to start rolling again.

The cost of being down, the cost of playing too defensive, the cost of being too much of a second-guesser is that when you are presented with the next opportunity, you tend to dismiss it out of hand because you say to yourself that if it really was going to work, you wouldn't be buying it because your luck's bad.

Natural and stupid. That's a natural feeling, but also a stupid one. While luck does play a role in any probability game, the notion of the Fleet deal, as well as the WellPoint (WLP:NYSE - commentary - research) deal, is that companies are for sale again at nice premiums. Go out and find them.

And with this column, that is just what I am going to do. "

(in www.realmoney.com)