>>The bottom line is, unless you outperform S&P 500 index
>>by 1500%-3000% on a yearly basis, you are really not a
>>'successful' investor, IMHO.
Larry,
I appreciate you for posting on this thread. Since I only follow bear threads, it is easy to get too bearish. Your model is that the market always rises and that DELL, MSFT, LU, and CSCO always lead the market. You have done very well with this model in a bull market, and I am impressed with how well you have called market turns in advance. However, your projection of a 1600% return for the coming year (26%/month) is fairly brash. The market has clearly changed recently, and it remains to be seen if you can continue your past success.
Roger Babb is also a very savvy investor who has been investing long enough to remember that bull markets end and high flyers crash. If I had been smart enough to follow his lead and cover my AMZN short at 95, I would have made a very good profit, although I am still up >20% this month (due to a nice market downturn, not any great trading on my part).
It is certainly possible in principle to make 26% a month shorting junk stocks (look at obvious shorts like OCOM and EASTE this past month), although it would take a better investor than me. However, as Roger Babb points out, at some point if you are highly leveraged in a few stocks you are liable to lose all of your money.
I agree with you that DELL isn't a terrific short, although I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it drop in half over the next year. I still can't see why anyone would short DELL, when any situation in which DELL drops GTW should drop more.
Your trading record is unverifiable unless you post your picks in real time - not just listing your successful puts and calls after the market turns in your favor. If you start a thread with a model $10,000 portfolio and list all of your trades in real time, people will certainly pay attention if you are successful. This is to your benefit also, as people who buy after you drive the price up, and sell after you drive the price down. Several of the top SI posters use this strategy to increase their profits.
If you can maintain your 1600% rate of return over the next 10 years, we won't have to log on to SI to read about you. |
