If I can identify any one person who does not appreciate or understand the relationship between stock price and company performance... well then I have not misjudged the thread.
How so? This thread encompasses a wide range of experience and expertise. It's organizing purpose is a particular way of looking at companies for the purpose of choosing ones in which one might invest, but its participants range across those who have deep technical knowledge of particular markets, those who understand finance, those who understand markets in general, etc. and some who don't feel that they understand anything at an expert level, but find a "sense" in this viewpoint which they have not found elsewhere. And, as I mentioned earlier, this includes those, many of those, who see this viewpoint as important for a part of their investments, but who have other viewpoints for other parts.
Almost by definition, someone who follows this thread has some level of understanding of why some companies are different in kind, not just degree, than others and why this is likely to show itself in investment performance over the long run. At the same time, the last couple of years in particular have given all of us an ample lesson that this coupling is not lockstep, day by day. So, why your skepticism? Why this sense that you need to spread the gospel of understanding the difference between a company and its stock here? Do we all have perfect understanding according to your terms? No. Do we all agree that you have perfect understanding. Same answer.
I don't understand this challenge to UF. Is he supposed to somehow be responsible for the perfect articulation of this idea (particularly since his version and yours are likely to differ and thus his version is likely to be seen as imperfect by you no matter how articulate he is)? This is not a bunch of sheep, electric or otherwise, following a guru -- UF or GM -- but a community which believes that its shared understanding is stronger than any of us could manage on our own. |
