I would like to tell you about the biggest investment (or non-investment) mistake I ever made. My wife and I were at a conference in either '88 or '89, and I noticed in the Wall Street Journal that a little-heard-of biotech company called Amgen rose 50% in one day because they announced that they received a patent on Epogen, the red blood cell growth stimulator. I didn't buy it because it was too hard psychologically to purchase something that had just risen that much.
The above was background. This young company was near their all-time lows, and had just received a patent. A skeptic, like the ones you often see on these boards could say so what, they hadn't even initiated any human studies, not even the preclinical animal studies. They could have said that even if positive results were seen they might be equivocal, that competitors might swoop in with a competing product that's even better, and that they were a long, long way from earning any money, let alone getting a revenue stream. These are all similar, if not identical, with objections I read on this board as well as others. That's why, unless critics really have something incisive to say, I take it with a grain of salt knowing that they'll have to learn the hard way and will never make any big money in the market. |
