I’m really sorry that I may have led any of you into joining me in re-taking a small position in BOFI. I re-invested on the following basis:
I had made it clear that I would buy back if it all cleared up, and wouldn’t even mind if I bought back at a higher price. I wasn’t trying to make money on the trade. I was just being prudent and careful and trying to avoid extreme risk.
On Feb 11th, the bottom recently, BOFI got down to $13.50, or $54 pre-split….We are now in mid-April, and it is more than seven months since the short attacks began, and the second shoe hasn’t dropped. There seem to be no new investigations by any agency. I had been considering reestablishing a position. All the news from the company has continued to be good. The price hasn’t continued to descend to zero, but has rebounded and last Friday finished at about $21.25 (or $85 pre-split)….
Some people will say “Oh! You changed your mind again!” If I did I’m proud of it, as you should always change your mind when new evidence emerges. (In this case the new evidence was that nothing has happened!) However I actually don’t think I changed my mind. I always said I was getting out to reduce risk, and to be safe, and because things looked bad, even though they might not really be bad. As I wrote above “If it turns out that there’s nothing wrong… there will be plenty of time to rebuild my position.” It seems to have turned out that it has all blown over. And the professional shorts seem to have left the field. Aurelius’ last article was Feb 3rd, more than two months ago. For a while they had been coming fast and furious. No regulatory agency seems to have taken an interest. I feel that I’ve been quite consistent with what I had said previously.
Well, that thesis is now broken as the shorts have attacked again and the Houston Government Employee’s Pension Fund (I think I got that right) is suing the company with several new allegations piled on the old. Monkey was correct. The sleaze factor hadn’t gone away. And there are enough companies around where you can have confidence in management’s integrity to invest in. The shorts were just waiting until the price rose a little so they could attack again.
Again, all this may blow over, and five years from now this may be a five bagger, but for myself, I’m awfully glad that I only bought a very small position.
Again, I’m sorry if I influenced any of you to make the same mistake I did.
Again, I’m sorry if I influenced any of you to make the same mistake I did.
You didn’t make a mistake Saul and you have nothing to apologize for. You are not leading people into investments but showing them how you do it. All of your points were well thought out. Somebody up board stated that maybe the shorts follow your board. But if you look at it your post made Post of the Day so it was all over the MF.
But Saul, you have taught all of us some valuable lessons and I don’t want you to apologize for what you do. As you have taught everyone on this board. Sometimes things do not work out right. Everyone is going to have to figure out for themselves what they are going to do and how to do it.
Saul, you have taught all of us some valuable lessons and I don’t want you to apologize for what you do. As you have taught everyone on this board. Sometimes things do not work out right. Everyone is going to have to figure out for themselves what they are going to do and how to do it.
Andy, I couldn’t have said that better myself. Many thanks you, and many thanks to Saul.
SaulR80683: Again, I’m sorry if I influenced any of you to make the same mistake I did.
There’s nothing for you to regret; you made a reasoned decision and clearly communicated your reasons, even touching on risks. The “Houston” news was an unforeseeable event which caught everyone by surprise. Since the Seeking Alpha writers went dead silent on BofI for a couple of months, it would be interesting to know if they knew, through the litigants, that this was coming… but I guess we’ll never know for sure.
Again, don’t beat yourself up because there’s no reason to.
it would be interesting to know if they knew, through the litigants, that this was coming
I agree NewEchota, it seems like there is definitely a pattern here. Also NewEchota do not stop posting your thoughts. I find them very valuable and have Rec’d many of your posts. This is one of the things that makes this board great. People are able to discuss investment ideas without all the rancor.
Thanks New Echota, and everyone else who has sent supportive posts. I really appreciate it as I felt bad when this boom happened two days after I posted.
Just like everyone else is saying…
Don’t worry about it. People here are big boys and girls who can make their own decisions and hold themselves accountable for those decisions whether it is based on your posts or not.
Many of us here enjoy reading your and everyone else’s thoughts on these boards. There is a lot of value that comes from this board whether we actively post here or not. I and I am sure many others would hate it if you hesitated one second about posting any thoughts you may want to share. We are all capable of making our own decision. If any of us make a trade based on something we see on here and want someone to blame then we can just look in the mirror at the person truly at fault.
Again, I’m sorry if I influenced any of you to make the same mistake I did
The most important aspect of this board is the great knowledge that is shared and our ability to learn from it and in life we learn the most from our mistakes. We will always make mistakes, the hope is to keep them small, and as Saul noted he was taking a small position. If you were blindly following him, you just lost 16% of a small position, no big deal.
The best lesson might be that we don’t idolize and blindly follow anyone, Saul, Warren Buffet, your favorite politician. Saul has preached this continually on this board, learn to fish.
My best investment was Worlds Of Wonder long, long ago. I put $2000 from a summer job into the awesome company that was making talking toys that would rule the world. I even knew someone that had a relative in the executive offices. Sure thing…to go to zero. Lost all $2000. Now if I had waited until I had $20,000 to invest, that would have really hurt, but instead it made me a better and more cautious investor.
Saul,
I want to echo what others already said, not to have my voice heard, but to encourage you.
As much as I value your investing acumen and style, I value your character and humility more. While your apology might not be necessary, I still find value in the fact you are willing to give it.
Two things:
You will fail at investing if you try to time the market, and this might hold true if you try to time the media as well.
Individuals are responsible for their own investing, you aren’t being paid and have no fiduciary responsibility to readers of this board.
Today’s funny coincidence: Bank of Internet USA Makes NerdWallet’s 2016 Best Banks and Credit Unions List
“We’re pleased to recognize Bank of Internet USA in several categories, as they’ve been at the forefront of online banking for quite a while and haven’t gotten enough credit for it,” says Devan Goldstein, NerdWallet Banking Expert. “They’ve stayed true to the branchless banking model: low-overhead operations paired with strong rates and innovative product features across the deposit landscape.”
Now, why isn’t the stock bouncing on the news? (Just kidding.)
And I don’t know if this was mentioned earlier but what a coincidence that the Seeking Alpha article was published the day before options expiration… nothing suspicious about that, right?
Yes, the Seeking Alpha post was published at a rather coincidental time.
One important thing worth noting, of course, is the disclose in that article by The Friendly Bear on SA:
“Disclosure: I am/we are short BOFI.”
Granted, The Friendly Bear primarily invests by shorting stocks, and only writes articles about a few companies that he is shorting. While shorting stocks can indeed generate quite a profit, it does so at the expense of the market, the health of the company, and the portfolio of legitimate investors. Short-selling helped bring about the end of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, and ultimately turned the 2008 housing crisis into a far worse situation. A serious short attack can bankrupt a company and even cause a bear market to turn into a recession. While there is nothing illegal about short-selling, it capitalizes on the fears of investors, causes rumors and news stories to result in a significant downturn that goes too far, and heavily undermines the growth of the market.
But anyway, back to the SA article. The article was posted shortly after the stock started dropping in pre-market trading, which caused a significant downturn throughout the next couple days. While the article did bring up some decent points, most of it was regurgitated old news, with the exception of a new entity joining the claim and that there were more former employees (called formers) stepping forward. I’m sure the author of the article did make a decent profit from his short position.
Unfortunately, there is a real impact on stock prices based on news articles, reports, lawsuits, and tweets. Even if there is no merit or factual basis to the content of them, media gets intentionally used far too often to manipulate the market for financial reasons.
Just like everyone else is saying… Don’t worry about it. People here are big boys and girls who can make their own decisions and hold themselves accountable for those decisions whether it is based on your posts or not.
Many of us here enjoy reading your and everyone else’s thoughts on these boards. There is a lot of value that comes from this board…
Indeed! If anyone bought BOFI simply “because Saul did it”, they clearly needed the learning opportunity.
Someone (sorry, I don’t remember who it was) made an important distinction between “good wrong” and “bad wrong” here recently… Bad wrong being due-diligence-laziness, or adherence to a thesis in spite of new, refutatory information, with “good wrong” being of the “I so got rooked on this crystal ball” variety.
Oh sure there is, when I thought that the market was in real trouble back in February, I was wrong. I didn’t do anything about it because I never try to time the market, so it was most definitely a good wrong.
After opening my position with BOFI a few days ago, it went up the next day and then down the next day. Bought a little more and watched go down even again the very next day. Still holding my shares and the downward trend seems to have paused and has actually gone back up a little.
What I cannot understand is why they would have hired a guy with a hugely bad criminal record…I makes absolutely no sense !
Could they have been giving this guy a second chance…As in, they knew him personnaly and believed that he was genuinely sorry for his past and wanted to truly change.
It happened that way for me once, many years ago…I went on to build my own company and start really caring about others, especially my wife of
(now 44 yrs) and my family & friends.
I have no idea what is happenning with BOFI management…Time will tell.
My position is small and I am going to wait a while longer. I want the whole truth about everything to be clearly known. One way or the other.
If you look at it you will see it happened clear back in 1991. This was back when the guy was in his early 20’s 25 years ago. He served his time and I couldn’t find any more recent offenses. Since then he seems to have been a productive member of society. I think it is pretty bad that society would still hold this over his head after so many years. If he has served his time and has committed no more crimes what should it matter here in 2016?
If you find more recent criminal information then this goes completely out the window.
