JessiDani: Well said.
In my opinion, the overwhelming majority of folks who follow and/or participate in threads like this one are here because they are long or want to be long the stock, in my opinion. Anyone voicing an opinion which goes against the "love-in" mentality is presumed to be a short trying to "talk" the stock down by spreading fear amongst the longs. Those actually admitting to be Shorts are trashed, presumed to be lying and viewed as the enemy, although as John Chew points out, they serve a useful purpose.
Go to any penny stock thread and you will see the same thing in extraordinary abundance, and sometimes you will even see it on the bigger stocks like INTC and MSFT. SI threads are full of folks who have done no research on the stock they own, have no system to follow, etc. They come here to read up on the stock they heard about from some other thread or the Motley Fool or AOL or some other "noise" forum.
Seems hard to believe, but I think it's true.
For an example, go read the CECN thread. CECN is a scam that was hyped by the "FutureSuperStock" back in April of 1996. In October 1996, I uncovered evidence that the company's claims to ownership of a Tennesee coal property were false. Despite posting my efforts on that thread, I was endlessly flamed. It got so bad that I was getting dumped on in my email box. Many, many folks who soaked up all the bull on that stock got stuck with huge losses. Yet, eventhough I was posting the phone numbers of the country clerk's office (among many others) in Tennesse who told me that the deed on file was fake, no one was willing to make the call. They believed, and they refused to believe that a publicly traded company would lie in SEC filings. Finally, someone made the call and then another and another, then an SEC complaint was filed, and so on. The stock now trades by appointment at .03 after hitting a hyped high of .87.
Such is the mentality of most folks on these threads. It won't change, you just have to get used to it.
The reaction to the article about the CEO is a classic example. Why would anyone want to entrust money to a crook? Good question, but the answer is complicated, I suppose. People want to believe, and they can rationalize anything that should challenge their beliefs. Is Mr. Pink correct? Seems to have a ring of truth to me. He certainly found evidence to back up non-specific concerns that have kept me away from the long side of this stock for quite some time.
Nice to see that someone actually reads these threads with an objective eye.
By the way, do you ever wonder why John Chew posts in this forum? Always seemed odd to me that an analyst spends as much time in a forum like this one. Don't you think?
Regards,
Jeff |
