OT Ian This is NOT a daytrading thread. It is a full disclosure trading thread. There are people here with portfolio turnovers ranging from a day to decades. Our endorsement of full disclosure means that we believe it is important to post our trades close to realtime regardless of their duration. I believe that it adds a level of transparency that is unfortunately lacking in many other dialogs here at SI. Some of the benefits of such transparency are: (1) it moves the discussion from the realm of mere banter and opinion to decision-making and action; (2) it creates a paper-trail that is vital virtual community based on trust; (3) it saves time by embodying opinion in shorthand resulting in a higher signal-to-noise ratio; (4) it distinguishes "talk" from "walk"; (5) it recognizes that timing is everything.
You will recall that we met on Cary's blood thread, which was distinguished by its implicit recognition that the essence of successful investing is finding quality companies, waiting for them to come into buying range, buying, waiting for them to become fully valued, and selling. The thing that really makes Cary's approach unique IMO, and what makes him such a valuable online citizen, are that the logic, the plan, as well as the execution were all completely transparent. The idea is that if there are warts, the best cure may be to give them plenty of fresh air. If this is to be a learning community based on experimentation and the sharing of ideas and results with others, then full disclosure has to be the bedrock of our empiricism.
Let me candidly make a comparison to another industry-specific thread with which you are familiar, the biotech value thread. Although there is a significant amount of industry experience and expertise present on the biotech thread, I have found the thread much less useful to me in terms of learning how to invest in this important industry, in part because of the relative opacity as far as trading decision-making is concerned. If you have a different point of view, I would enjoy hearing about it.
You will notice that one person who is conspicuously absent from the FD thread these days is the arch daytrader, advocatedevil, who ironically is the very person for whom this thread was created for the purpose of eliminating what many regarded as clutter from the AMAT thread. The fact that AD was an outstanding daytrader, but that he could not sustain his profitability is itself one of the important lessons that participants (should) have learned from this thread.
Sorry for the longwinded response to your innocent assumption. |
