Originally Posted by Left Handed

You pay for beer in Vegas???

Rereading what I said there I can see it isn't clear what I meant, and you are absolutely right about the stock only being worth what someone will pay at a given moment. My thought was less about the day trader mentality and more for an investor who can withstand the dips in the market without panic selling. If he can hold on for a while, the history of the stock market for any 20 year period is a positive trend. Assuming that nothing catastophic happens like bankrupcy or national emergency etc, and the investor can hold on to the stock, they would hope to sell it at a profit someday. Which would tie in to supply and demand in that if many people hold onto the stock, people who wanted to buy would have to pony up the money (again barring a knee jerk reaction to something).

The only statement of yours I would disagree with is "If future investors feel negative, those holding the stock will feel the same way as well because they are all drawing the same conclusions based on the same information." I think many investors including Warren Buffett would disagree, saying the time to buy is when the stock market dips (obviously doing thier proper research first). Who knows... if I were any good at it, I would be a broker.

The merger rumors make me smile also. I think we should buy American. How did we get to 1B in market cap? Was I sleeping? You are right about the hype. It does seem that aviation stocks are even more volatile than most others that are tied to oil.