I do give him credit for posting returns, etc. Definitely, everyone is "wrong" a good deal of the time.
What troubled me was the stridency of his call to short the internets - it was definitely a belligerent call. I have no agenda long or short in those things, but I do follow them closely and trade the daylights out of them. Since you've also follow Smith's writings, I think you would agree it's clear that he's not very "close" to them... so to make such a strong call across the board really seemed quite damning to his overall judgment, IMO.
It seems to me that he is trying to learn how to "daytrade" the market close-in on the fly, yet he is positioning himself through his writings as Mr. chart expert. I think there are some major inconsistencies going on there. And have you noted, since his partner Wesson departed he seems to be struggling with trading. Just an observation.
Anyway I'm sure he's a good guy, and you're right every trader is wrong quite a bit...
The other guy on thestreet.com that's interesting to analyze is Cramer, the founder & 'main man'. Now there's an interesting one. He has a wealth of high-level knowledge, street-savvy, stock/institutional savvy to share; I read most of his stuff and learn a lot from it. But although he calls himself "the trader", as a hedge-fund manager he nearly blew his whole hedge fund up last year by gambling a huge position on an obscure, clearly questionable spinoff from Scientific Atlanta. Judging by his "explanation" (published as a 3-parter while he was on vacation; it dug him in a lot deeper) he didn't even understand what the company makes, his huge position was all based on insider "street whispers" and buddy recommendations. Hmmm...
At least Cramer has made himself a quarter Billion by IPO'ing his web site to the teaming masses hungry for obscure internet IPOs... no one can say that is "dumb"! <G> But, I'm not so sure he's really a "trader" in the sense that we (actual traders) respect, as his self-annointed nick-name implies.
Market just opened a little soft... waiting to see how big of reversal that was yesterday... happy to be flat for the moment.
Regards, -Steve |
