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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (10907)	7/10/2000 9:08:38 AM
From: Madharry	Respond to of 78467

Reminds me of an anecdote I read somewhere about a commodity trader. Started out making his own mistakes, figuring that if he only made the same mistake once he would become rich. Then realized after awhile that he could profit by learning the mistakes others had made thereby saving himself a lot of money.He excitedly told his father-in-law over dinner. The response: " You dummy ! forget about mistakes, find out who is successful and do what they do."

To: Paul Senior who wrote (10907)	7/10/2000 11:12:34 AM
From: Michael Burry	2 Recommendations Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 78467

HOLD ON About this "experience" issue and notches in the belt, what a crutch. The two are not equivalents. Buffett did not live through the Depression, but somehow was able to anticipate and profit from the 1970s. His returns have been steadily the same in the 1990s as in the 1950s. I don't recall in any of what's written about him that he claims the 1970s - the market's gyrations - made him a better investor. In fact, I don't recall this argument being made by any of the value strategists that I admire. I will give that experience may be measured in years. But for any person to claim that he/she is somehow a better investor - or to belittle another investor - because of this experience is ridiculous, petty, and ignorant. Evidently age is not certain to confer at least one quality - the ability to differentiate between population-based generalization and individual outcomes. This will inevitably become a battle between the young and the old. After all, how can an older investor not take comfort that his 40-50 years of experience is somehow better than 10 years of experience? And how can someone with 10 years of experience not think that the 10 years mean something? That would take an incredible amount of self-invalidation that is generally not humanly possible. Certainly if one lost a lot of money in the early 70's, then self-invalidating those dues would be even less humanly possible. But Paul and Jeffrey, you should be ashamed of your snide and snooty smears on the ages of contributors here. You two should have more self-control and self-awareness. Part of that awareness should be that there are indeed people who can adapt, learn, and apply better than you. Believe it! Time in the market does not qualify you to stand at the top of the mountain, and pushing others down exposes yourselves and creates an environment where you too will be pushed down. It is all extremely unproductive. And the younger contributors might want to consider not touting their experience, as it will most surely not measure up to some of the older members' experience, and will invite ridicule, whether deserved or not. Let the arguments, ideas, and strategies stand on their own. On those, we will be rightly open to attack. But at least the personal angle will not have been introduced. I've appreciated the insights of Senior and Bash when it comes to analysis and strategy points. But the overly confrontational and too-personal tone reflects their surnames too often, is not necessary and is one of the major reasons this thread has been criticized as too clubby. A newbie gets at most two strikes, and I'm sure a few have browsed the thread only to not post because of the personal attack that sometimes greets certain posts. I will forever remember Paul's welcome message to me - to the thread that I started: "You're a doctor, ipso facto a lousy investor." What a neat but perfectly ignorant and completely unproductive judgement. Can we keep this stuff to a minimum? Mike

To: Paul Senior who wrote (10907)	7/10/2000 1:13:14 PM
From: Craig Bartels	Respond to of 78467

<<Whereas my learning is, that most people can't get short-selling right, even hedge funds sometimes seem to blow up, there seem to be more people getting rich buying stocks than shorting them, ergo the odds would suggest I avoid spending much time/money at all in short selling. You get to say I am a little staid in my methods>> That's the key "most people can't get shorts right". True. I am paying $600 a month for AP's site to be around some of the most brilliant shorters ever. $600 is nothing compared to the profits I have obtained over the past 9 months. <<On a positive note, I get to admire your opportunistic aggressiveness. From your profile you seem to be in value stocks, day-trades, swing trades--- everything. Surprised there's no options/leaps action. Meanwhile, in looking for common ground, some of the value stocks you choose/chose (e.g. ACK) seem worth a further look to me. >> I feel you can make money in multiple ways in the market, so far I have been fortunate enough to have done splendidly the past 8 years, so much so that I plan on trading full time at the end of this year, and realizing my dream of working for myself. One of my goals is to start option trading this year, just havn't done it yet. chbartel