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

To: Stoctrash who wrote (11011)	11/24/1999 4:48:00 AM
From: Bruce Brown	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Fred wrote: Bruce, Can you someone else please do a scan on DISH and see where it might have holes in making it into the candidate list. I'll be happy to try and answer any questions regarding it. I'm afraid somebody else will have to do that scan, Fred. I have not invested in the company, nor do I - at this point - see enough desire to look deeper. As I previously mentioned, I know nothing of the company outside of the little bit of information that has appeared here on the thread. My response was solely aimed at the trading aspects of stocks as opposed to investing aspects in regards to DISH's impressive two year return of over 1,500 %. If one did not feel comfortable with the investment, I question why the original money was even invested in such a stock. I'm sure there is a good reason why the investor made his decision to buy and then sell and then buy and then sell..... I know that I irritate many with my LTB&H beliefs, but I sincerely believe that if one has done their research well - regardless of whether or not the particular technology stock is in a gorilla game, a godzilla game or a royalty game - that using the initial confidence of why one resulted in buying the stock after their research and decision was made in the first place, holding for the longer term can more often than not turn out to reward the investor far more than the trader. Keeping personal score cards and logging them in a journal to 'rate' one's own long term success as a trader or an investor (or both) can be similar to the revelation that a golfer has when they finally see their own swing via a video taped session on the driving range. I'll be damned if I ever view my swing on video for the duration of this life. However, I continue to log and monitor my investing 'swing' to learn from my own experience and strategies. My professional life is one that is judged on performance alone, so I find it hard not to judge my own investing performance as well. The manual itself begins with a score card on the inside jacket cover (revised manual even has a Godzilla listed - Yahoo!). I have a journal that clearly diagrams each and every investment I have made over the past 21 years and I run a column next to each that is called "what if?". The 'what if?' is the column that keeps tabs on what if I hadn't sold some of those stocks from years and years ago like Coke, or Gillette, or Phillip Morris, or Exxon, or K-Mart, or Boeing, or Compaq or whatever stock it was and held on for the long term instead. Then, I can use these numbers to compare and contrast to see if my decision to sell, pay the taxes, reinvest in something I thought was 'better' for the long haul actually turned out to be true, false or if I simply broke even. I recently moved my 'journal' to the computer so it is instantly updated via the Internet. We speak much about Kings, Princes and games 'outside' of the Gorilla Game on this thread. There are certain tornadoes that the technology adoption life cycle of products the world uses can create quality long term investments that may or may not contain a higher risk that keeps investors away. Even though the authors of the book state "hold 'em lightly and run for the hills when you smell trouble", I'm one investor that refuses to take that as gospel just because it is in the 'book'. Dell, AOL, EMC and JDSU have proven to have been quality long term investments that have rewarded investors - regardless that none are in the gorilla game except as value chain members (I include the all important Internet as a gorilla - which one cannot invest in of course). siliconinvestor.com It's only a 100 month chart. Going back a few more years and EMC, JDSU and DELL's returns are even more impressive. These are all stocks that we could or couldn't make a case for holding 'lightly'. Compare that to the risk aversion stocks for the same 100 month chart: siliconinvestor.com Also very impressive returns and of course, if SI's charts allowed one to go back to the maximum time frame, Cisco, Microsoft and Intel go up to 40,000+ for the two former and 6,000+ for the latter. I will make the all important distinction that I am not trying to entice or encourage anyone on this thread into investing a dime outside of confirmed gorillas or stocks that one should 'hold lightly' according to an investment philosophy mentioned in The Gorilla Game book. We all have our risk threshold, various amounts of working capital, time horizon and goals to contend with when it comes to choosing investments. The past 13 years have been an investing time frame that I would gladly like to 'repeat' going forward for the exceptional returns, but I'm more realistic to know that I will need to continue to learn, adjust and search for opportunities. My 'journal' experiment has helped me to learn and lessen some of my mistakes along the way. Whether the journal continues to teach me over the next 10 to 20 years as it has in the previous time frame remains to be seen. However, if the past is any indication of the future, there are quality technology investments that do exist within powerful value chains that tornadoes can create. Well researched, focused investing of positions in some of these promising candidates will reward investors that have the tolerance for the risk provided they invest and not trade or play the rotation game. Keeping a core holding, of course, of the few gorillas would always be advised. My experience with fat ladies is this - "there's more than one way to make them sing." BB