VolFan - I nominate you, the hardest working man in Fooldom. Your efforts are appreciated. :>
Chris - I have given your posts many recs and value and respect your thoughts. I really do. And yes I would like to develop killer analytical skills. That said, I personally no longer tell anyone else what they should do. My main point is that making it easy to quickly and efficiently figure out exactly what the Saul picks are, on CAPS, would make the board even more effective. There are two valuable ways to use this board: learn the method and pick for yourself, or just make most of the same picks being made here. Regardless of why Saul started this board, he is sharing picks that are making a lot of money and it’s entirely reasonable to join him in those picks with as little, or as much, study as one likes. Blindly following Saul or making one’s own picks come with their own risks and trade offs. That said I do think we should all try to add actual value to the board’s mission - finding growth stocks - and I personally would like to up my game here, if only by finding off-the-beaten-path info about the “squishier” elements of these companies - leadership, messaging, marketing, etc.
Since this is kind of OT I’m adding this to its own section below and hoping this doesn’t contribute to a board-clogging long thread. I do think it’s a useful consideration for all rookie/mid-level Fools…
Some of us may have a golden goose skill, which is merely identifying golden gooses and picking the most inspired/valuable eggs they lay. I feel my skill is exactly this: identifying brilliant, decent, mature, wise people who know who they are, who are articulate, have a methodology and make picks aligned with their personality/methodology/passion. Time and again I seem to know who is going to have a good season in sports or win a game - you can feel the energy, commitment, alignment of players and teams. As I noted earlier, the Spurs Gregg Popovich really seems to get this as well.
Over my years in Fooldom, I have needed very little time watching the likes of Bezos, Hastings, Ullal, Tom and David Gardner, Bill Mann, David Kretzmann, Saul Rosenthal, and many others to know true greatness when I see it. I look for companies run by men who seem to be doing what they were meant to be doing. I look for picks that are most closely aligned with the stock picker. For example, Tim Beyers is a Rule Breaker and passionate techie/media analyst. When he lost his mind for Marvel, prior to it getting acquired by Disney, that was enough for me. The basic logic seemed flawless. And I made a great score doing very little work. It was the right pick by the right analyst at the right time. I value alignment highly. This is why I value Tim’s passion for HUBS more than the doubts expressed by other brilliant Fools. I think Tim’s skill set, experience makes him better qualified to analyze that stock. But I agree with you, never to go in totally blind. That will backfire as one who blindly follows another stock picker is likely to get shaken out in turbulence. I love what I see from HUBS in terms of the quality of their work and I’m very familiar with Seth Godin’s work which has influenced Hubspot from day one.
Investing our finite time is a serious choice that comes with major opportunity cost. I’ll bet flying planes is an extraordinarily powerful, liberating human experience. But I don’t want to learn how to fly. I just want to get from point A to point B as quickly and simply as possible. Pilots may suggest that I try it. But it’s for them to tell me what I should do with my limited time that could run out at any second.
I respect and appreciate your passion for all Fools to become their own Golden Gooses. And one thing I’m certain we agree 100% on is that every Fool is 100% responsible for his own picks - even if he is just blindly following others. The ultimate sin in Fooldom is to blame others for your own misfortune. Even if I pick all Saul stocks just because he posted them, the responsibility is totally my own. And it is important to keep the energy positive and clean by making this explicitly clear. Saul bears no responsibility whatsoever for anyone else’s money.
Bottom line: Hopefully I’m broadening the definition what it means to be one’s own golden goose. Remember, we are MOTLEY Fools. I’ve always played most strongly to the “Amuse” section of the “Educate. Amuse. Enrich.” mission. To paraphrase the Bard, “This above all, to thine own Foolishness be true.”
Fool On,
BD
Since every pick they make is basically correct, they should be right? 