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To: Pirah Naman who wrote (47928)	10/15/2001 5:34:26 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Access to another person's transaction history is usually hard to come by. One doesn't need actual transaction history. Number of shares, in particular, is irrelevant to the question. But, even so, I'm not really interested in anyone's specific history unless it were to be offered as an example. What I am much more interested is a set of rules which can then be applied to a sample of companies over some period of time to see what the rules would indicate and what the consequences would be compared to other rules. You want to predict; valuation is not for predicting, but to improve odds. Err ... don't you make predictions in order to obtain your valuation? And what is "improve odds" except predictive advantage? You've rejected the large scale academic studies Only in the little I know of what is there. I don't reject them all categorically if you know of one or more which really address this point well, I'm happen to check it out. I am only skeptical since it seems like one needs to make adjustments in pulling numbers out of the financial statements of companies like those we discuss here and I am skeptical that this has been done in those studies, if only because it is a bit tedious for any large study. If you want a small sample study on a subgroup you could do that in a few hours. I hope it doesn't have to wait for that ... I am less optimistic than you about how long it would take me to work it out.

To: Pirah Naman who wrote (47928)	10/15/2001 11:44:53 PM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

I think that this horse is falling apart and quite possibly putrefying Pirah, Thomas, John, & Jurgis-- some of you seem to be getting a little frustrated with each other, and with going over what seems like familiar ground again and again. If so, I encourage you to take a break before you get so annoyed or dispirited that you say something rash or throw your hands up in despair. Why? Because I want all of you to come back eventually and keep these discussions going, along with others like them. Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way (although I doubt it), but I've found your back-and-forth fascinating and very helpful in spurring my own thinking. Despite the fact that you might not have managed to persuade each other, you've offered a wonderful set of arguments and counterarguments for the rest of us to ponder. And FWIW, I don't think any of you have really been on the giving or receiving end of any rudeness, so I would encourage you not to get huffy. tekboy/Ares@serious,foronce.com <edit> PS I disagree with UF that the exchanges were all "assertions" that didn't get anywhere. I thought many of them were legitimate arguments that offered reasons why one might or might not follow various approaches toward the question of valuation. For various reasons, including the funny nature of the companies we focus on here, I don't think we will ever end up with hard, universally accepted "conclusions" in this area. But that doesn't mean that each of us won't have to form at least some provisional conclusions of his/her own--and that these kinds of mature exchanges aren't useful in helping us think clearly about the issues involved.