By the way, this is a real lot of work to put together, and format and put out every month. Do you think it’s worth it? Is it too long to read through? Do you get bored? Do you find it valuable as is? What do you think?
Saul,
I can’t express how helpful your posts have been, though I’ve tried more than once.
This month is somewhat of a hallmark in that my portfolio is up 33% year-to-date which exceeds your performance, I don’t really take credit for it, but if nothing else it indicates that I do not blindly attempt to mimic your every move. Nevertheless, I pay close attention to your moves and the summary is something I look forward to every month. I am reasonably certain that I’ve read every post you’ve ever made to this board. At one time I tried to read every post from everyone. As the board has grown and the contributors have multiplied I find it impossible to do so anymore. I find myself ignoring whole threads, and skimming many posts rather than reading them. But, without exception, I read your posts closely.
Yes, your summaries are worthwhile and valuable to me and obviously many others. Many of us would be disappointed if you didn’t continue or even switched to quarterly summaries. I understand that your summaries are a lot of work. I’ve read through the entire thread and a number of folks have some good suggestions of what to do, but not very much on how to do it.
I’ve observed and commented before that there’s a fair amount of redundancy from month to month. I understand why. The redundancy is only noticed by those of us who follow your posts closely. A newcomer to the board, reading the first monthly summary of yours won’t notice the redundancy. It’s all new to them.
So first, of the many suggestions you received I hope you don’t start building the summary with links to previously posted material. While that would save you some effort it imposes a burden on the reader. I personally dislike posts that are full of links and I often don’t read the linked material. I’m sure I am not alone in this. I find it hard to maintain continuity of thought when jumping around with links. Further, I’m sure you don’t start from scratch every month. It’s reasonable to assume that this month’s summary started with last months, then add to, take away as appropriate.
So here’s an idea that you might want to look into. First, I assume that you don’t actually build your summary in this archaic text editor (embedded control characters and all, takes me back to the 80s). So, if you build the report in MS Word and paste it into this editor as a finished product I would suggest you look into some Word features you might not be familiar with:
Here’s a link to information about creating and using “building blocks”
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/create-and-use-cont…
And here’s a link to information about using “quick parts”
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/use-quick-parts-and…
It would take some effort to set up the blocks and quick parts, but in the end it may well be a time saver and eliminate at least some of the time and energy you put into the summary each month. I’m not sure this will help, you would have to be the judge of that. But it is least worth looking into.
In any case, whether or not you find this suggestion beneficial, I do hope you will continue to provide your monthly summaries. But if you just find it too much of a burden and greatly abbreviate it or even stop all together, it will not diminish my admiration, respect and gratitude for all your generosity and wisdom.
