Re: "Suckers, OTOH, are impatient, and buy what they think will go up."
Who doesn't?
All I'm predicting is that CSCO is very unlikely to get to your estimate of fair value. If you think that makes it a bad investment at any higher price, then I think you will rarely be able to buy a gorilla, and would have seriously underperformed the market over the 95 - 97 bull run, when gorillas did the best, and never sold anywhere close to their PEG. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few years, but having some inkling of future trends IS crucial to investing - a fact I'm sure Buffet and the others you refer to would agree with. It doesn't make much sense to invest in buggy whips; it does make sense to invest in companies which will help build the Internet. There are a lot of companies at or below "fair value", according to your method of valuation, but you omit so many important intangibles (again, elements I"m sure Buffet and others would agree with) such as quality of management and predictability of future cash flow and earnings as to make it a very misleading measure - that's what I'm trying to assert. Using your criteria for "fair value", investors would only be able to buy first line companies at the bottom of bear markets, but would be buying a lot of second and third tier companies the rest of the time, or staying in cash - and either way, underperforming in anything less than a 5 - 10 year horizon.
Bob
Bob |
