makingithappen (27.91)

The Sea of Indecision and Buying Personal Convictions

June 24, 2008 – Comments (4) | RELATED TICKERS: SMS , CPRT

I'm a new fool, and I really appreciate this online community, especially those who have been foolish enough to reply when I post comments on their blogs. Thanks!

The most important thing I've learned in the last couple of months here on CAPS is that I've got to go with my personal investing convictions. I've been floating in a sea of investment indecision, but I now know I can't buy or sell a stock just because of somebody else thinks or says something about it. If I don't understand the business and the forces behind it that are moving or will move it, I just can't buy it. I have to do my own due diligence and be thoroughly persuaded in my own mind that this is a stock I want to put money into. Then, no matter which way it goes, I have nobody to blame -- or pat on the back -- but myself.

So that brings me to the scrap business...even a new fool like myself can thoroughly understand something that simple. I picked SMS to outperform on June 5, and today, June 24, I finally bought the stock on a dip at $38.15, and even wrote a pitch for it. I've been watching SMS since the end of May, and was discouraged from buying it by a famous television personality on CNBC a couple of weeks ago when it was $2/share lower. Anyway, I still enjoy and learn a lot from said stock personality, Jim Cramer, though I have learned that his stock picks are all over the place -- his recommendation of CPRT has been a good one for me -- but a fool could lose a lot of money if said fool doesn't do her own research and go with her own foolish convictions.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. ;-)