Jimbo
Now that I have stopped my newsletter to focus on my fund, I actually have time to enjoy reading and posting again.....yeah!
Saw your note re/differences between a newsletter and fund and thought I might be able to shed some light on the situation.
First, I must say that I would be better off having followed my own newsletter ideas the past years. In writing a newsletter, I can be extremely objective. But as you are probably aware, when it comes down to entering the Lion's Den, a person can "know it all" and still lose money/not make as much money if they fail to execute their plan....i.e. emotions rule. I spend more time controlling my emotions each year -
Second, managing a multi-million dollar fund is VERY different from managing a 100k portfolio. Putting 15% of the fund in an internet stock is much more challenging (i.e. difficult) than with $15k from the newsletter. With 15k it is much easier to get in and out, but try selling 1M worth of AMZN on a down day (rrrr) .....in other words, with more money I have to pay MUCH more attention to entering and exiting stocks.....really is incredibly different than with a smaller account. But I am learning with the help of other good traders like Craig M, Butkus, etc.... I just want to get better each year.....
Which is why it was time to rid my newsletter for a while. Time to focus on improving returns for the fund and it was difficult managing the extreme differences in portfolio dollars. And IVO the fact that this information is in response to a question, since inception of the fund early 98, we have beat all indexes (sp500, djia, rut.x) by at least 10%. We lag the NASD but I am working hard to repair that.....and I might add there have been no negative quarters including 3Q98 when NASD was down 10%.
Craig M once told me I could either be a good newsletter writer, or a good money manager, but not both. Eventually I would have to choose.
Good insight.
With that said, I hope this sheds the light on the drastic differences in portfolio returns.....
Finally, regarding fame; I am hardly famous. hahahah I wrote a decent newsletter for a while and have managed to live off of trading for a few years. But I am no where near the quality of traders out there on the board such as mentioned above. And the longer I am around, the more I realize it is better to remain incognito....I'm working on that also, with the ending of the newsletter, and with my last public lecture at AIQ Conference Tahoe in Oct.
Looking forward to future conversations with you.
good trading
Henry Brookins |
