| | | You should not use Mike's quotes as a gospel for investing. Mike was on a learning curve, and tried a lot of different methods. As for "not having a single misfortune blow up his entire portfolio" that may be so. However, he did have at least one of his entire portfolios blow up. That was his website's portfolio. Mike's reasoning for discontinuing the portfolio was that he had no more time to maintain it, if I recall correctly. However, that coincidentally was also the time the market was hitting lows. I don't recall where his stock positions were. I do remember though that when he reported he was closing it down that I considered it the antithesis of value investing -- selling at lows instead of buying at lows.
There's more to it than simply that, as well. There's something else other than value investing involved when you are trying to become a public face for investing, and/or when you are just starting out in money management as a career and when you don't have much capital yourself. You just cannot, must not be wrong for long. You can't afford to alienate or lose potential clients, professional peers or media with bad calls. In this regard, Mike was no different from
other people trying to enter this field whom we see here or have discussed. My point specifically related to Mike's timing in selling of stock is this: if you are presuming that Mike found a way of investing that worked for him - whether it's combo tech&value or heavy use of stops or gut feel or basic selling losses rules, and that such might be suitable or optimal for others, it's my opinion that Mike had extremely compelling reasons to take losses early (and maybe even more so: not stay in a losing position) -- compelling reasons that other people might not have. |
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