I have to respectfully disagree with you. You know about mental accounting, so like me, you are an educated investor. We are fine. I think another thing that money does is cause the fight/flight response. People who are uneducated about investing, see 2000% returns and the fight/flight response kicks in, and they invest all their money in 7 stocks. The better Saul did, the more people learned about his board. It attracted the most new members in about Jan of 2021. I think a lot of people lost a lot of their life savings. I canât say that is Saulâs fault. He does not charge for his board and people are adults. He tells people not to do what I did and just follow him. Still, I think it is very sad. On another note, since you met people from his board in person, what are they like? How old, what type of work do they do, etc. I was an Electrical Engineer, but I had terrible health problems, and was forced to change careers due to it. I have worked in Property Management ever since.
Impressive, high achievers, Iâd say late 30âs or early 40âs. For work, anywhere from just managing their own portfolio to CEO of private companies. Not your average investor.
I am sure a lot of people lost a lot of money trying to follow the board and trade but there are amply warnings. I read it for ideas and the analysis provided; I donât trying to follow the style as I donât have the time to dedicate to managing a portfolio in such a way
Tamhas.
Not sure why the rose colored glasses when discussing Saul and his board.
His board was given permission to be an invite only board in 2022. He only invited people that followed his way only. Anyone that questioned was cut off from posting on the board.
I for one questioned in 2021 their constant changing of their valuation models, that seemed only to change in a way that helped overvalued names not seem so overvalued. At the time the board thought they had discovered a never ending pot of gold in SAAS. A reoccurring revenue stream of rainbows and moonbeams. Anyone that questioned that, the pushback was a beat down by the board police.
Many of of also brought up cash positions, and if you were around, which I know you were, you know that cash was the four letter word on the board. Laughed at by Saul as a performance killer. You notice the change in 2023, when suddenly Saul talked about his safe cash pile, and Bear and others suddenly had rather large cash positions? No change in policy discussed, just acted as if cash is a new phenomenon.
Of course we now have Bear, who seems to be Mr Valuation. Can only find three stocks right now that are investable. 68% cash currently. Almost more of a trader now, the way his portfolio changes monthly.
Bottom line, they were pumped with success for a few incredible years and they thought they were invincible. They werenât. Most people came too late to the board to benefit from 2017 to 2021. A lot got very hurt. I personally know three guys that had to go back to work. People got hurt. People got too caught up in the results and human nature is to want a piece of it, but it never lasts.
Me? I and a few other guys from that board left and started our own site. We had bad 2022s, but matched what the markets did that year. So not devastated.
Now? Well I still think we have hit the highs this year back in July. Iâm up to 24% cash and my biggest holding is TMF, which is certainly helping today. Down about half what the market is today. Still down though. I donât like September markets. Iâll stay cautious until the election, then move forward.
To me, Saul wanted to create a board and talk about investing the way he thought about it with other people who thought the same way. Hence the name of the board. No promises made. Other people who were interested, but thought differently were fine to listen in and ask questions, but not to subvert the conversation. I am sorry that people got hurt, but this happens all the time in investing ⌠someone will have a good couple of years, a bunch of people will treat them like the messiah, and bang there will be an off year and people get hurt. That can be the fault of the pseudo-messiah if he or she worked to get followers, frequently to get money, but Saul just said here I am, here is my many year history, and letâs exchange ideas and perceptions. Anyone new should have started reading the Knowledge Base and there was long term performance data there, including some nasty years.
I donât know, Iâm glad itâs talked about somewhere, since not everyone can post on Saulâs, itâs tough to get any counter perspective.
He certainly deserves credit for YOLOâing in to companies with recurrent revenue, profit be damned, during a high time of loose fiscal policy. But to completely eschew valuation, to have little to no regard for tax consequences of flip flopping on many holdings and to belittle and run lots of smart people off the board⌠to me, Saulâs seems like a social media tool to support a high risk, ultra-concentrate, momentum strategy that is not a sustainable strategy long term.
Agreed.
Saul didnât take responsibility for laughing at anyone with cash, always claiming to be 100% invested, yet in the end, when 2023 came along, without any explanation or admitting to any wrong doing, he started monthly sharing his cash position.
Sorry, but when you put your name on the front of the building and invite people in to learn your investing style, there is a responsibility that goes with that. At the end of a great run, Saul and his gang became reckless and allowed nothing that gave any other viewpoint. More then a few tried to talk about the Fed and interest rates, âdonât fight the Fedâ, and overvaluation, and it wasnât met by open discussion, and friendly debate, it was met with bows and arrows and insults.
The board today is now a shell of itself. Rarely if ever is there any discovery of a new name. What they buy now are discoveries made on other services. Many times too late. CELH an example. ELF another one. NU Iâve been in since last year.
Oh, donât get me wrong: Iâm definitely of the opinion that weâre all adults and make our own investing decisions. I didnât expect Saul to take any responsibility - nor should he. Heâs not a financial advisor, and none of us/you paid him to be one.
Itâs the stifling of the debate, the Iâll-take-my-ball-home hypocrisy that tarnishes Saulâs legacy.
I understand why he stifles debate. He wants to talk about his stock, and not have to spend hours justifying the dizzying valuations. What I did not like was the tone he used with me and others. He gets in a fury if someone has a different point of view. He could nicely say, âthere are different styles of investing, and unfortunately, I donât have the time to justify my style, so I will need to delete posts regarding valuation, etc. There are many other boards that love your style of investing that you can go toâ. Instead, I was called a short seller, and a troll. I did not even question his style. He said growth investing always beats value investing, and I said, your style of growth investing does, but overall, if you go back to 1926, value investing has beaten growth investing. I think he would have been less hostile if I used racial slurs.
I suppose that if the board founder says, âthis board is here to talk about X and other discussion is not welcomeâ then it might be understandable if the founder got miffed when someone tried to talk about not-X.
True, but it was not like that in my case. If he had been talking about anindividual stocks, and I brought up that value stocks had beaten growth stocks since they began keeping records you would be correct. But his comment was about growth stocks as an asset class, and I pointed out that since records began in 1926, value stocks had done better than growth stocks. I even went out of my way to not be confrontational by stating that his style of growth investing does much better than value investing. He then resorted to furious personal attacks. I am not the only one that has happened. It happened to Broadway Dan, who had some of the best posts.
Just guessing, but probably most people on serious investment boards are high achievers. I would have thought more retired people.
Itâs interesting that a lot of the equities Saulâs board loved and discarded (because theyâre momentum plays and not really focused on quality business underpinnings that materially support long term success through several revolutions of the economic cycle) are now showing resilience and are likely just that: long term winners. $NET, $BILL, $ROKU just to name a few. Iâd rather be in those than energy drinks, make up, stun-guns (a commodity), and niche organ transplant transport.
Although Iâve read your post several times, I don´t get it.
Just as a broken clock is ârightâ twice day, Saulâs stock calls sometimes --belatedly-- prove âcorrectâ.
I tend to agree. An index is best for most.
There are various kind of investors who wants to âdo betterâ, and they think they can. So they pick.
I think the kind of investing you are referring to does depend highly on when you buy and sell. They donât like to admit it but that is trading. Not high frequency trading but trading nonetheless. That is a different game.
The idea is to chase growth, and when growth weakens or cease then they sell. They cannot really predict when it will cease so at the slightest sign of weakness, they bail- usually after a bad quarterly report and a large drop in the stock. It is a completely different game but it is a game one can play in the stock market.
To be successful at that game, one needs to be ready to move in and out rather rapidly, and to react to some news about the business (instead of saying âit will right itself in the long runâ because you donât believe it will). It is not a game for everyone. If you donât want to bother then an index is more than fine.
There is no such thing as âHouse moneyâ. How did you get that âHouse moneyâ? You earned it from a salary? It is house money only after you paid tax on it? or you made it when you sold a stock with a large capital gain? There is no meaningful definition of it. It just says that after it doubles you are not ready to have that much in the investment. But why? if that investment is going to the moon, or so you believe then why not leave it in for it to compound? Certainly you can take it out when you need it like a highly irregular dividend. But what is house money and what is not?
Again, the people who talks about âhouse moneyâ have more of a trading mindset. They think: if it went up so high so fast, I better sell. For a longer term mindset, you focus on how the business might do long term and you believe the stock will follow the trajectory of the business, and so you can get âyour moneyâ to compound. That is how wealth can be built.
tj
Saul has been in and out of these historically and abandoned when the popular growth story waned. But they are likely long term buy and hold winners based on the secular trends they are in, and the quality of their product.
Well in this case, I made the right call. I sold near the top. It had started going down, but not a lot, and I sold my original investment before it took a huge hit.
That is how I felt about Saulâs investments. Some stocks, and some etfs, I hold almost forever. If you looked at the income statements for Saulâs stocks, they were all losing money. I did not have confidence in the companies. That is why I sold my original investment so quickly. It was really an experiment. Mastercard, I have held for 8 years for example.
Which of his hundred stocks over the last 6 years is near its ATH?
i bet 90% of them will never see again a ATH. They are likely down 90% from ATH 
He is more a momentum trader then a growth stock investor.
The $TDMX story of him is funny because I think it was and still is one of the best growth stocks of the last few years. One user even announced relatively early on how the exponential growth would develop over many quarters. Saul has bought and sold several times, never held the position (despite brilliant growth figures) and is still ignoring this stock (he could make 300% and or more). WHY?
The number of stocks that make a straight line march to the top is vanishingly small. Even the superstar stocks of the 90âs - AOL, Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft had stumbles that temporarily whacked their valuations. If you had been smart enough to invest early (most had a âpopâ when they IPOed) and then bailed you would have missed 90% of the growth. Of course some were laid low a half decade later in the Naz crash, But thatâs the point: some go on to astonishing heights, some donât. You have to ride with your stocks and know at least a little of whatâs going on with them and with the market they serve generally.