THE FRONT OFFICE GORILLA GAME: Q3, 2002 -- PART 2
The Gorilla Game
When I reported the numbers to you roughly three months ago, our Gorilla Game was performing very badly but
it was at least slightly outperforming the S&P500 and the Naz. What a horrible difference a few months make! Since
then, our Game has lost almost one-fourth of its value and it's now dramatically underperforming both indexes.
I was wondering if the Game's current losses (roughly 40%) since inception are comparable to the losses that were rung
up almost immediately after I started playing the game. Indeed, the last time the Game was performing as badly as
it has recently been performing was during a period of three to five months after I began the Game. That was
about four years ago.
There's not much more to say about the awful numbers at this point in time. Instead, read 'em and weep.
Year- History
to-Date History Annualized
Gorilla Game -74.77% -39.16% -10.60%
Nasdaq -33.32% -27.95% -6.64%
S&P 500 -23.16% -20.56% -4.69%
The numbers for Siebel Systems as of the close of market, October 29, 2002:
Change
5/25/98 5/1/99 4/11/00 Current From First
Buy Price Buy Price Buy Price Price Purchase
SEBL $5.75 $9.61 $52.47 $6.97 21.22%
The Final Tally
Stocks $5,980.26
Cash 104.08
Total $6,084.34
Details about the Game
The Front Office Gorilla Game (not a real-money portfolio) was begun with $10,000 and four stocks in equal dollar
amounts on May 25, 1998. Using the rules of the Game, I gradually eliminated all gorilla candidates until only the
stock of the Gorilla (Siebel) remained as it does today.
Commissions are based on $8 per trade. The value of earnings on invested cash is not calculated. Those earnings
would have been so insignificant that no meaningful lesson could have been learned from them.
And last, the most important stuff ...
CAVEAT: I own shares of Siebel Systems. In the past I have owned long and short positions of Siebel's competitors
(including some that were at one time "in the Game") and reserve the right to do so in the future. Most important,
please, please don't make any investment decisions based on anything coming from my keyboard.
Do your own homework!
--Mike Buckley |
