Ah man, Sector. I'm too busy correcting you -g- to even look at MRVC stock price.
Regarding blackjack. I'm basically a craps player, but when I play blackjack I do split aces and eights. I play bj as a respite from craps, and I find myself unwilling to practice and work at card counting. Therefore, I use chart from "Zero Memory 4-deck Blackjack Strategy", an article which I clipped years ago from an issue of American Statistician. I'm comfortable with that because I see the research behind it, and I believe in the results of that research. Not that I claim to be a bj winner - sometimes I win, sometimes I lose- but that I believe for the work I am willing to do (memorize a chart), I am maximizing my chances for a favorable outcome.
Perhaps the difference between us is this: You make your own analyses and decisions and are successful doing so. You follow your own path so-to-speak. I am more willing perhaps to follow others. Whereas you might consider that, if not a fool's way, a lazy or sloppy way. I like to believe I am making my own decisions also though. Even as I find I want to watch closely what successful investors are doing. So for example, I've liked GCI before Warren Buffett bought it. Now that he's bought I likely will be buying more. I hope to profit there just as I did with DNB and GMT which he bought. Closer to home, people attentive to Paul Klemencic's work on the Electronic Contract Manufacturer's thread have made good profits in almost any (if not all) of the companies discussed there.
I do not have the profits you have in MRVC with any of my stocks. Nor, imo, do I deserve such profits. I wasn't aware of MRVC at 6 or 12, but I doubt I would have the confidence or conviction to have bought what for me would've been an overly large position. You would have a valid point by saying you were able to have that conviction (to buy such an amount) only because your superior research enabled you. I would counter by saying that that much research requires that your portfolio of stocks must be small - there's not time to research in detail (if that's what superior research is) so many companies. You ultimately close (or maybe win) the argument when you say, all you need is one good stock. I mumble something about too risky for me and go back and ask myself, am I meeting my financial goals? (seem to be), so I will stick to the ways I believe the experts are saying to invest.
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Aside about Lynch. A commentator had a good comment about Lynch's famous "know what you own" point. He said that after Vinik, Fidelity tightened up on allowing its managers to talk with the public. So Fidelity made it darn difficult for the stock holders to "know what you own" at the very same time that they hired Lynch to do those Fidelity commercials. |
