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

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (54458)	10/21/2003 11:05:19 PM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

>> I'm not willing to work hard again to build up another sense of community having learned how easy it is for people to help tear it down. You sure are a slow study, Mike. I'm not that quick myself, but I came to that conclusion about 2 years ago. Next thing you're going to decide is that a cell phone would be useful :-). Like you, I have no interest in trying to re-energize this forum just to make it a platform for the trolls. That leaves us with 2 options - convincing SI admin to allow us to convert to moderated status, or starting a new moderated g&k thread. I prefer the former, as I'd hate to leave behind 4 1/2 years of history, and hundreds of bookmarks from former posters. I'll check to see what our options are. uf

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (54458)	10/22/2003 12:43:52 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Respond to of 54805

posting such a message simply isn't worth it. To me it would be.

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (54458)	10/23/2003 4:09:33 PM
From: Stock Farmer	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 54805

I'd like to think we can post messages that are factual, express opinion supported by information, and offer critique rather than personal attack However, if one is going to be selective in one's choice of facts, then one should be willing to accept some personal criticism for demonstrating selection bias. True, SEBL has generated a 9% annual return over the last 4 1/2 years. That's a fact. However, it is unhelpful by itself in the context of evaluating The Gorilla Game as a strategy. A more objective perspective would be an evaluation of an example of the Gorilla Game as run in real time, say, over the past 5 1/2 years. Like the Front Office Gorilla Game. Which others besides me have cited as an "excellent example of The Gorilla Game strategy in action." Wouldn't you agree? Correct me if my facts are wrong, but I believe that at SEBL's current price of something less than $12, the Front Office Gorilla Game portfolio would be worth something less than $10,400 right now. Ok, that's better than the Mattress Game, which if played over the same time frame would have delivered $10,000. And it pales even in comparison to the T-Bill Game which would have delivered $13,700 by now. The Qualcomm Game, well that would have been a good one too, but the E-Bay Game... well, that's even better. We were discussing The Gorilla Game. And in the context of other available strategies, it doesn't rank up there as having a lot of merit. Not over the theory's lifetime, that is. It does appear to me that "Gorilla" companies (those that end up having obviously been Gorillas) end up also having delivered above average returns when measured over the lifetime of the stock. However, it's one thing to play the game retrospectively and forget about having cheered for ATHM and GMST while pointing out SEBL and QCOM. It's an entirely different matter when identifying SEBL as the front office Gorilla in real time. As the Front Office Gorilla Game so clearly reveals. Despite having been explicitly designed as a strategy to deliver such results, the Gorilla Game doesn't help us capture the gains that Gorillas end up exhibiting. Not because the stock doesn't perform well, but because the game is flawed. The problem is that by the time a company is recognizeable as a "Gorilla" that the Gorilla Gamer's aren't the only people on the planet who realize this, and the market price is bid up to neutralize potential gains. In fact, Gamers who are purchasing based on the game's criteria alone end up at risk of over-bidding the price. The idea that there is some check-list formula that allows an external observer a leg-up on everyone else in the market is incredibly attractive from an emotional standpoint but intellectually bankrupt. The sooner that folks realize this and move on, the better off they will be as investors.