Reality PC

Webcasting videostreams of then Portfolio Manager Donald Luskin and team's every move, and trading on investors' stock tips, MetaMarkets.com's Open Fund took the Internet revolution to new limits. The fund's performance shot up more than 100% in its first five months after its untimely Sept. 1, 1999 debut. It has long since closed.

Now CIO of Trend Macrolytics, a Menlo Park, Calif., economics consulting firm serving institutional clients, Luskin blames Alan Greenspan for "decimating the expected returns for all forms of capital investment, Internet investment included." In an attempt to correct the "insane" valuations of such dot-coms as TheStreet.com, whose market cap topped $150 million, Greenspan took technology stocks down with the most improbable of the probable, Luskin said.

"The fact remains that profitable,' per se, should not be an exclusive criterion" for investing in Internet stocks, Luskin said. "It is the long-term prospects that matter. The mistake investors made at the top was investing in companies that had neither profits nor prospects."

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Money Management Executive
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