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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tekboy who wrote (6523)	9/18/1999 7:14:00 AM
From: Apollo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Tekboy: consolidation as opposed to diversification My understanding is that the GG recommends consolidation within a single gorilla category, not necessarily among categories. Nevertheless, if I were single, I would have > 80% of my portfolio in Q. Sold the last of my taxable mutual funds on Monday, and bought more Q and INTC this week. Lindy made an interesting comment (somewhere.....Q thread?) about Q being the best "lock" he has seen. I'd like to believe that and wonder if he can amplify how and why the Q lock is better than the locks of other gorillas Stan

To: tekboy who wrote (6523)	9/18/1999 9:21:00 AM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Whether to aim for consolidation or diversification depends mostly on the needs and psychology of the stockholder. If you are an older person with all the money you need to live on why risk this all this security by concentrating in one stock? If you are young with a high paying job extreme concentration may make more sense. The more money you have, the less the marginal utility of the next dollar. To a starving man, $5 is a lot, it means he gets to eat for a while. To a millionaire ,it's nothing. The easy way to diversify is to buy index funds with some of your funds, and use the rest to invest in the types of stocks you understand. Excessive diversification by it's nature results in average performance..Too many stocks makes it very difficult to find the time to follow them. Personally, I find somewhat less than 10 to be the ideal, but I put a disproportionate amount of money in my best ideas. Most of the stocks on SI are very sensitive to bad news, and as anybody who held SAP can testify, even gorillas can approach senility <g>. Any stock that has "more than doubled since last spring" only appears to be low risk in retrospect. At the time buying it meant going against the consensus that was already priced into the stock.

To: tekboy who wrote (6523)	9/18/1999 9:43:00 AM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Maybe Mike has just discussed Seibel more than CTXS or GMST, I've discussed Siebel a lot because it's part of my weekly report on the Front Office Gorila Game and because its CRM market is expected to be bigger than the ERP market. I haven't discussed Gemstar as much because I did something much more effective; I got Stew to join us so he can do a much better job of discussing it. As for Citrix, it's the company that I probably understand the least of all those in my portfolio. I don't feel comfortable discussing anything other than the glossy generalities. The expert on Citrix in my opinion is MikeM in the Citrix folder. but I got the impression that he also thinks [Citrix] is further along in its gorilla development and thus a better and safer buy (true or not, Mike?). It's farther along in product adoption than I had previously thought, thanks to the recent revelations that came out of their iForum. The product has definitely crossed the chasm. Until Citrix lessens its dependency on Microsoft and/or somehow gives me a reason to think Microsoft needs Citrix more than Citrix needs Microsoft, I think the safety issue will remain a red flag to keep an eye on. If you're asking which is the safer buy, at the moment I think Siebel is the safest (though threatened by the ERP players and requires careful watching.) Citrix might be the next safest. For someone who doesn't have a professional understanding of Gemstar's patents and litigation issues (I don't), it's probably the least safe. But it's not a lot riskier. It's critical to understand the role the ongoing litigation plays in Gemstar's risk and reward. Their downside risk, if they lose the litigation, is less than their opposition's risk of losing. Conversely, if Gemstar wins, their opportunity is also a lot higher than if their opposition wins. To put it in the context of gorilla gaming, if they lose the lititgation they still remain a viable gorilla candidate. If they win the litigation, Gemstar will have a lock on their market as strong as Qualcomm's, maybe stronger. (I feel so strongly about it that I have to resist temptation of highlighting that last sentence in a bold font.) Just my opinion. Stew, do you agree with my comments about Gemstar? --Mike Buckley

To: tekboy who wrote (6523)	9/18/1999 1:48:00 PM
From: Percival 917	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Hello tekboy, You have had some excellent posts the past few days. In fact so excellent you have inspired me to go back and read all the posts from the beginning. I have been lurking here for awhile longer than you and on occasion contributing but not gone as full bore as you. With my full time practice I have barely enough time to get home and stay up with the current posts, but I will make the effort. I think it will be worth it. BTW it's an old joke but don't you love it when doctors call what they do practice!! <gg> Squire J