Rainier,
I'm interested in my Uncle Frank's response to your idea, but not so interested that I'll wait before offering my own opinion. :)
Since stalking a Gorilla is best done in a Tornado market...
That's an interesting concept I don't remember being discussed fully here. It's true that the authors tell us to wait until the tornado forms to invest in enabling technologies. It's also true that all gorillas are spawned from tornados (though all tornados don't produce gorillas.) And it's also true that identifying a gorilla during a tornado or relatively soon after would be a great time to begin an investment.
However, the authors also tell us that the greatest opportunity for investing in applications technologies occurs before the tornado begins, when the product adoption cycle is still in the bowling alley. Most technologies are applications technologies. Therefore, I think we'd be making a mistake to focus exclusively on the tornado, when most of our investment opportunities could easily be justified before the tornado begins. (The fact that I believe the greatest opportunities are the enabling technologies is not to be confused with my thinking that there are a greater number of opportunities in the applications arena.)
, how about launching a thread dedicated solely to current tornados that are picking up wind? There's some potential there if the great group of current contributors participated.
That approach is not too different from the approach we used in the Motley Fool Gorilla Game folder I began on AOL. In fact, if you go to the header for this folder and click on the link to a post I wrote, you'll find a rather long list of tornado watches that was compiled exclusively from posts in that AOL folder. Despite that, the interest died down to the point that the only industry being followed there is in reaction to the stuff I post about the front office software industry.
I really do believe that the reason this folder is exponentially more successful is because it offers participants the lattitude to consider Kings great investments also. That creates more opportunity for discussion of alternative investment styles (Who would object to the money so many made in Dell, the King of Kings?!) while at the same time helping us focus on the disctinctions between gorillas, kings and, yep, shiny pebbles.
In summary, this folder is so successful that I'd strongly urge everyone that we not mess with success. I enjoy the vital discussions of tornados here. However, based on my past experience in a fundamentally failed folder, I wouldn't encourage anyone to launch a folder dedicated solely to the discussion of tornados.
As always, just my opinion.
--Mike Buckley |
