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Pastimes : Van Brady - FORBES GURU 43,000%
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To: Urlman who wrote (15)1/11/1997 6:26:00 PM
From: Paul Senior   of 33
 
Brian: re: the 1 in 256 chance. Say you pointed to Van Brady in '89 and said "Him". Then it's a 50/50 chance that his choice will be above the break-even point (That's what Forbes is saying anyway) the first year. Next year 50/50 chance again, so for Van Brady doing it 8 times would maybe only happen by chance once in 256 times. So Forbes implies we'll go with the other explanation ----- it's not chance, rather Van Brady has got special talent. But Van Brady was not identified specifically and uniquely before the fact. My point is that over a large number of years that the game has been played, there have been at least 100 different people chosing stocks. If there were 256 people, then by chance alone we would expect maybe 1 person to be able to do it (go 8 for 8). We wouldn't know who before the fact. but there would be someone. I'm saying: Hey it's not so rare (only 1/256) of somebody doing it when you got a lot of people trying Maybe (100/256) 1/3 chance of us seeing it among one of the many contestants. (For you stat. people, yes I know it's a little more complicated than I simplified here, but my point remains.) And the past has no memory in this game: so Van Brady gets a 50/50 chance to be a hero this year.
But forget all this, does anybody really use the results of the game to choose stocks upon which to invest serious money? I'd like to know that. What would the portfolio look like? One, two stocks?? There's better gurus coming out of Forbes than Van B, doncha think?
Paul Senior
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