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

To: voop who wrote (9091)	10/28/1999 11:33:00 PM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

"how do you tell a potential gorilla from a shiny pebble?" Well, what I really meant was this: There are several stocks that many here believe are on the verge of becoming gorillas, but are not quite there yet for one reason or another (CTXS, say, or SEBL--unless the latter's DNA test is now generally accepted). Those are obviously worthy of extended discussion, so that the more conservative among us can jump in soon after gorillahood is declared. (This is, for example, what seems to have happened with GMST over the last month.) Then there are the various obscure but promising tech stocks that people come across, are intrigued by, and choose to present for general consideration. Often these are courteously dismissed as Shiny Pebbles by the thread elders. Pressing the case vigorously after that, in the face of substantial resistance by more than a few respected threadsters, should probably be considered bad form. The only delicate areas, it seems to me, are the godzillas and cases where the categorization is hotly disputed by many. My personal feeling, for what little it's worth, is that the godzillas should be discussed on the other thread and that robust contentiousness should be encouraged regarding disputed categorizations. For example, some here follow SNDK and believe it might become a king or even a gorilla in flash memory down the road. Others, including our beloved threadmaster, consider it a Shiny Pebble. This produced an extensive discussion a couple of weeks ago, which ended with views unchanged on both sides. Even though I don't hold SNDK and would place myself in the pebble camp, I found that discussion extremely interesting and valuable, because it forced me to think through just how to operationalize the definitions of kingship and gorillahood in a new and fast-changing area. In the end, it was precisely because I could see the species dividing line more clearly that I felt able to place SNDK on the far (wrong) side. The same thing happened with RMBS, by the way, as Apollo and others tried valiantly to anoint it while others manned the battlements and anointed them with molten lead for their temerity. After the September fiasco the RMBS backers retreated to lick their wounds (although some vowed to return later on). Had the skeptics managed to shut down discussion in the beginning, however, the thread would never have been able to read Apollo's searingly honest and intelligent post-mortems, and we would all have been deprived of a great practical lesson in the importance of waiting for the chasm to be crossed. The most important criterion for all discussions, of course, should be the meatiness of the argumentation--because the more light that is shed, the sooner we will come to a proper conclusion. tekboy@reunionexcursiontoPebbleBeach?.com