GORILLA GAME SURVEY
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To: Snasraway who wrote (11396)
From: Snasraway Monday, Nov 29 1999 10:31AM ET
Reply # of 11444
Personal Portfolio Survey of G & K Thread
Introduction: We hypothesized that collecting and compiling listings of personal portfolios issued by threadsters would be interesting. In particular, we could determine the influence of thread discussion on individual threadmate investment decisions. We could also match the personalities with actual investments, both in quality and quantity. Given the discussion on G & K, it would be interesting to see how people "vote with their feet".
Methods: Personal portfolios were submitted voluntarily, and at random, between 11/20 - 11/28, 1999. Individual stock selections were enrolled into an Excel spreadsheet, and weighted according to the data submitted. Of the 74 portfolios submitted, 3 were excluded as they lacked data on weighted distribution, giving a final sample size of 71. For those who submitted multiple portfolios (ie, "mine", "joint", etc.) these were treated as separate portfolios. Cash, mutual funds, and groupings unidentified (ie, "2% biotech basket") were arbitrarily lumped as "other/cash", as they represented potential reserves with which to purchase a gorilla/king.
Data were analyzed according to Most Widely Held (frequency found in each of the final 71 portfolios) and the Most Heavily Held (the proportion, %, or overall weight given an individual equity by the pooling of all portfolios, a surrogate for the entire thread).
These results are better than 90% accurate, but not perfect. I took a few shortcuts, such as when a portfolio listed "final 2% = dozen stocks", I usually skipped enrolling these in the interest of time, figuring these barely held stocks would not influence important trends. Limitations of this survey include the potential for bias with less than a 50% sampling of those who participate/lurk vs. those who submitted their personal portfolios.
Results:
There were 71 complete portfolios analyzed. Each averaged 7.6 stocks or cash/other positions per portfolio. Overall, there were 536 potential individual stock selections that could have been made from this cohort; yet only 54 stocks were found in > 1 portfolio, as well as the rest. Below is a listing of those 54 stocks, number of times listed amongst the 71 portfolios.
Most Widely Held
QCOM 69 (96%)
GMST 42 (58%)
JDSU 37 (52%)
CSCO 35 (49%)
EMC 24 (34%)
CASH 23 (32%)
INTC 15 (21%)
MSFT 15 (21%)
NTAP 13 (20%)
CREE 13 (18%)
AOL 12 (17%)
LU 10 (15%)
GLBX 9 (13%)
CMGI 9 (13%)
SEBL 9 (13%)
SUNW 9 (13%)
DELL 8 (11%)
TLAB 7 (10%)
WIND 6 (8%)
BRCM 6 (8%)
PMCS 5 (7%)
MFNX 5 (7%)
SFE 5 (7%)
YHOO 4 (6%)
RFMD 4 (6%)
ITWO 4 (6%)
CTXS 4 (6%)
TXN 4 (6%)
WCOM 4 (6%)
Listed in 3 (4%) portfolios: NT, RNWK, CNXT, AMGN, TXN, AMAT, RMBS, ORCL, VARL, IBM, VTSS; GE; TYC
Listed in 2 (3%) portfolios: BRCD, QQQ, NXTL, GNSS, QWST, MOT, BVSN, PFE, EXDS, CMVT, SNDK, ICGE, ARMHY
Listed in 1 (1%) portfolio: SFA, CPQ, ARBA, VISX, GSTRF, SDLI, HLIT, GTRX, COVD, DCLK, MPS, VAR, VSEA, SAWS, OMPT, LVLT, MXTR, AAPL, VRTS, HYSL, MRK, LLY, MTC, GZTR, LGND, PG, FON, WMT, SSTI, MOLX, IDC, RSAS, LSI, UPS, KLAC, WAVX, PCTL, LUMM, QTRN, CYCH, AMCC, STK, SFTBF, ATHM, HD, INSP, WPNE, TMWD, QLGC, SIFY, INFY, COII, COST, MNMD, TYC, TERN, ELY, MRVC, DMRK, VSIO, CLS, TD BANK, JNJ, GNET, ETRADE, NTRS, AFCI ADPT, CD, CA, IMCL, PSIOF, PHCM, ITXC
Most Heavily Held,
for the entire Thread Portfolio (pooled results)
QCOM 44%
JDSU 8.9%
CSCO 6.0%
GMST 5.7%
CASH 3.6%
MSFT 2.6%
EMC 2.6%
INTC 1.3%
AOL 1.3%
NTAP 1.2%
CREE 1.3%
LU 0.9%
DELL 0.9%
SEBL 0.9%
SUN 0.8%
TLAB 0.8%
DELL 0.8%
GBLX 0.7%
CMGI 0.6%
Discussion/conclusions;
1. The most ASTOUNDING finding is that Gemstar is the 2nd most widely held stock, even though it hasn't yet tornadoed, in the way that QCOM or JDSU have. Gemstar is more widely held by thread survey participants than Cisco, Microsoft, or Intel; or even EMC and NTAP. This must be an example of "group think", as pointed out by JDB; whereas the widely held positions of QCOM and JDSU represent "astute group insight", since these companies have tornadoed and have proven themselves.
2. Participants are heavy into telecommunications, internet-enabling infrastructure, and internet related ventures. This may be partly related to direct and indirect ?Gilder? effects.
3. Some stocks, like AOL and EMC, get little discussion here, though they are both widely and heavily held by the thread. Companies substantially discussed here, like VISX, SNDK were barely or never listed.
4. Dell was in 8 portfolios, but only once was Compaq listed. PCs, in general seem de-emphasized, except for the silverbacks MSFT, INTC (only 6th most widely held). In another example, AOL was in 17% of portfolios, yet ATHM was only in one.
5. One of the most significant positions is cash or mutual fund holdings, presumably for buy on the dip opportunities.
I like to thank everybody for their generous submissions and the words of support in public and by PM I have received. I'm looking forward to hearing the Thread's analyses of these data.
Sir Apollo
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