I’m going to answer your question the long way around. So pull up a chair, grab a cool one, and listen to a fishing tale.
The Pitt River has its headwaters in Goose Lake (NE CA) and empties into Lake Shasta at the top of the Central Valley. Pit River - Wikipedia
In its lower sections, Pitt 3 through Pitt 5, it’s big water, in rugged country, and premier water for trout fishing. In late '50’s/early '60’s, as a teenager, before the increased flows have made it very tough to wade, I’d bushwhack down into the canyons and pull out arm-length rainbows that were mostly unfished for, just because access to the river was so tough.
Over the years, the river became more well-known, and my son and his two buddies took to fishing it, often putting in 12-hour days, dawn to dusk, high-sticking it, and often bringing to net --and then releasing-- a 100 fish between them. Over the years, they might have a 100 days on that river between them, which is ‘home water’ for them, though they also steelhead on the Trinity, the Grand Ronde, and the Snake. The fishing system they developed is this. In the morning, each would tie on a different top bug and different dropper, and then they split up, each working his own section of water. But when one found something that the fish were taking, he’d call it out, giving the others the chance to match it. Whether they matched it was up to them. But the choice was made available.
Same-same with investing and trading.
If I give you a dollar, and if you give me a dollar, neither of us has gained anything, and we both walk away, neither richer, nor poorer. But if I give you an idea, and if you give me an idea, some magic might happen.
Years ago, when the bond board was still viable and active, Scott and I would swap ideas. On one of his pitches, he got me into Hanson’s something of sometime at 40. When it came due a couple years later at par (i.e., 100), we both scored a fat profit. In turn, I got him into a tobacco settlement zero around 2. When it got called a couple years later around 54, we both made a killing.
The guy who pitched MUR to me is the best, deep-value analyst I know. We’ve swapped bond ideas over the years, rarely stock ideas. He’s more ‘Marty Whitman’ than ‘Ben Graham’, but the best forensic analyst I know. So when he says that I might want to look into something, I pay attention. But I also do what I always do when given an investing tip by anyone. I chart it. When I saw that MUR had already broken out, I backed off. I doubt he pulled a price chart, just not his style for not being a “market timer”. But he makes serious money with what he does buy, which, as I said, tends to be more on the fixed-income side of things than the equity side. But ideas are ideas, and I’m glad we can share them with each other without being compelled to act on them.
