Tony, while I agree in general that industry knowledge is a good thing, I am reminded of James Morgan's claims, about a year ago, that the Asian flu would not hurt AMAT's business that much. In light of that, I find it difficult to fault Bob all that much on his semiconductor equipment calls. And I would have to say in general, that if you want guaranteed returns over a 2 1/2 year period, then individual stocks are not the place to be, know matter how much you know about an industry. I say again, this individual stock risk that Bob keeps talking about is not an academic concept.
I also have a hard time getting past the fact that of the six stock picks that you and I have mentioned (MSFT, VOD, AMAT, UTEK, STII, and KMAG), if you had put equal amounts of money in each stock when it was recommended, your portfolio would be up over 500 per cent. And that assumes that he recommends selling the last four while they are down, which I am certain he is not going to do. |
