Art, I have also read the Barron's article and was pleased to read Spyglass' position. I agree with you also though the relative meaninglessness of the results considering the many open variables. I believe also that the Market perception defines the value of news. I eluded to it when I referred in my last post to the demise of the market-efficient theorists (i.e., all the news available has been weighed and absorbed by the Market) The Sony and Inktomi deals will mean money for Spyglass, but not if you check the stock price on Friday's closing.
Some months ago, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal Interactive about a day trader who only bought and sold Yahoo. Every trading day, he bought and sold tens of thousands of dollars of Yahoo stock but he could not name the CEO of the company much less the company's business plan. Although most traders buy and sell a number of stocks, I think essentially, he is not unusual these days. On the other hand, I tend to study a company. I have followed Doug Colbeth for years and will probably learn his dog's name, if he has one, if the information is publicly available, so I have a hard time grasping this new mentality.
Emotions and psychology are so strong these days that short-term, I have come to concede that a fundamental study of a firm is not valuable in the short term. Over the past thirty days, about seven percent of Spyglass' outstanding stock traded hands every business day. While there were a couple of notable press releases in that time, I have a hard time justifying those numbers before the day traders and market makers invaded. Also, the topics are so complex that it is hard to grasp technological issues. I read regularly from a half-a-dozen journals, but I often find myself confused with the projections given. The Barron's article is a good example; the mind has to give way to the emotions of others and the actions they project.
I note that even "experts" get trends wrong and gurus fall in and out of favor almost as often as the passing seasons. People trust the gurus like Steve Harmon on past record, but we follow him also because we know others follow him, sort of like looking at each other in a pit and defining the moment's herd instinct. I have been a shareowner of Spyglass long before I heard of a guy named Harmon and I felt SPYG was underappreciated when it was at $9/share, but I have a hard placing a limit on when it is overappreciated. I find myself then looking across the pit as evidenced by the share price and seeing how the price moves along. As someone interested in the name of Colbeth's dog (maybe a mixed breed named Mosaic), I have a hard time making sense of the numbers sometimes, but that is how rewards are measured.
All my best,
Osman. |
