This board is a wonderful resource. I really hope as Eric mentioned that no one is blindly following your picks. You stress investing, but that is not what many posts reference when the chips are down some. I have learned a lot about temperament here reading and appreciate it. The market is up a lot for a long time. Dark days will come, and that will test the mettle of the board. That may be now, or not, so be it. I know from your posts dark days don’t affect your process. I also hope new readers here will be clear about the stocks here being very risky. Unfortunately more risk=more reward. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Thanks Gator, and Eric too for your kind words. I do give an update on what’s in my portfolio from time to time because people have been curious, but I never expected anyone to try to mirror it. Especially since I make little changes all the time, get out of some, add others.
I too was shocked to read that Cleverbear had attempted to mirror what I had, and then overweighted PFIE and HZNP (!), neither of which I would have dreamt of overweighting. And he had always been an income investor so he was just starting out in real investing.
I visualize the board as a tool for people improve their investing skills, to share information and ideas, to learn how to choose stocks for themselves, and to learn how to invest intelligently. I certainly expect people to make their own investing decisions and not to try to copy every stock I have, although it’s nice when others on the board are interested in some of the same stocks as I am because we have great discussions about them (UBNT, PFIE, SYNA, etc). Please remember to make your own decisions about what you buy and sell, and feel free to disagree with me as I certainly make bad purchases at times. The only thing I have ever guaranteed is that I make mistakes at times and that everything I buy doesn’t go up.
I visualize the board as a tool for people improve their investing skills, to share information and ideas, to learn how to choose stocks for themselves, and to learn how to invest intelligently. I certainly expect people to make their own investing decisions and not to try to copy every stock I have, although it’s nice when others on the board are interested in some of the same stocks as I am because we have great discussions about them (UBNT, PFIE, SYNA, etc). Please remember to make your own decisions about what you buy and sell, and feel free to disagree with me as I certainly make bad purchases at times. The only thing I have ever guaranteed is that I make mistakes at times and that everything I buy doesn’t go up.
Hi Saul,
Once again I would like to thank you for generously sharing your thoughts. I really agree with and take to heart your words that I quoted above. I love this board for ideas - many of which I had not yet heard of. Then I do my own digging and make my own decision regarding investment.
I visualize the board as a tool for people improve their investing skills, to share information and ideas, to learn how to choose stocks for themselves, and to learn how to invest intelligently.
Exactly. This has become one of my favorite boards because I’m learning so much here.
I bought PFIE and HZNP really due to the enthusiasm here, and I haven’t done enough of my own homework (especially with HZNP). I ended up selling HZNP for a loss, but that doesn’t bother me at all because I learned a valuable lesson (do my own homework, especially for stocks without an official TMF recommendation to lean on, and especially for risky/volatile stocks). I’m sorely tempted to add to PFIE, but I’m holding off because it’s not an MF recommendation, I haven’t gotten familiar enough with it, and I already have a sizable position.
Some of the stocks Saul likes are ones I don’t understand (AFOP, JCOM), and so I’ll skip those for myself. I’ve found some that feel Saul-like (Team Tom’s most recent rec in Stock Advisor, and one of the newest Fool One EP picks), and so I’ve got positions in them. And I’ve got positions in some less aggressive growth (CMG, PRAA, MIDD) because that feels like it stabilizes my portfolio, and that makes me sleep better at night (I guess I’m finding my risk tolerance…).