Use access key #2 to skip to page content.

alstry (35.70)

An Investing Lesson Learned????

Recs

8

May 26, 2008 – Comments (12)

I have been accused and chastised on a number of issues this weekend.  Take the following quotes from Bellard and use then as a learning lesson.

10/19 

"Dude;You are clueless. SPF the company sucks! Most know this - It is the stock that may be good! You do not know the difference between the company and the stock - investor rookie 101."

"Nice reversal on huge volume(last 3 days). If SPF can show solid(200M+) cash flow from op's we are headed for 10 a share."

10/21

"Dude you need a life."

"I have been posting on yahoo finance for 10 years, and by far you are the most pathetic individual poster I have come across. You sound very desperate with this small uptick in SPF stock - you start lying about SPF being cash flow negative - when I point out SPF has been cash flow positive for 3 strait q's...You really need another hobby - maybe ask mommy for some toys..."

10/22

"You are another clueless investor. GGL is a housing related(due some research) stock with huge debt an terrible balance sheet. And yet some paid over a billion in cash for this..Just shows that capital is available for distressed housing stocks - just a bit more positive info for SPF stock going higher - what don't you get?"

"Yo Toolboy;
So HVAC is not housing related? you are dumber than I thought... "

10/23

"Sorry - didnt mean to offend.... "

"In general I don't like looking at book value as an investment metric..Foe HB's it is aproppriate measure over time..I mainly use cash flow, the CAPM for valuation. I think SPF is worth about 8-10 given current info... "

10/31

"I manage my own hedge fund, so I am using SPF as a positive hedge against my put potions in most of the other major HB's .I think SPF stock is undervalued below 8-9 a share..So my valuation for SPF is about 50% of its tangible assets"

"You are still having problems with the difference between the stock and the company...rookie!"

"I also like making money on chumps like you - thanks for the $9200 and counting - chumpboy... "

11/01

"You do not seem to understand investing or financial markets..."

"As an economist, I understand these market better imho...You guys can't see the forest for the trees..."

11/02

"I do not know the personal wealth of these insiders, but I am wealthy..."

Keep talking chump....I just keep making money...Thanks for the profits!"

"PAA - Posters Anonymous Association....the 12 step recovery program is needed for alshorty"

11/07

"where else do you post? Do you follow just one company? respond, or be a wimp and still "clueless investor"..

"You sound upset..I am sorry...better luck on your next loser..."

"Yo Clueless;I am heading out to do a little rock climbing..."

"If you do not post on any other equities as alstry, then you have ZERO credibility and deserve no respect!...WIMP!"

11/09

"It should now be obvious to the longs, and shorts on the board that Alstry should get no respect"

"You have been exposed as a loser"  "What a loser!" "Pathetic."  "You don't know Jack." "You need help Al." "clueless(alstry)"

11/12

"More intelligent post from Alsht.... You can come out of the closet...."

11/15

The title that defines Al@#$% - lonely victim

"good bye loser!"

11/19

"In SPF case, trading below 20% of net tangible asset value, there is a good chance that if SPF goes chap 11, the stock price will actually rise. BK is a process, not just an event..The Debt holders will get less than 100% of there money, if any value left over your SPF shares may have value... "

Bellard is may be right about his perspect about me.  Maybe I am a pathetic loser.  The following Johnny Cash song pretty much sums up my feelings at the end of this weekend....especially after TMF Deej chimed in with his profound input and wisdom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xypf6Fue62Y

 

Using the above, very important investment lessons can be learned from this. 

When one goes to law school, you are taught to always look and ALL the facts AND understand BOTH sides before crafting your argument or drawing conclusions.  This is a very good approach for investing as well.

The above presenation is one sided....it is my presentation....and intended to draw the reader to a certain conclusion.  It may or may not be a fair representation....simply a statement of facts that I have chosen to provide.

This is what corporations and analysts do all the time.  So do members of CAPs when trying to make their points one way or the other.  It is important you are aware of this logic because words or actions, not taken in context or actually deceptive, can lead one down the wrong path when making an investment decision.

Providing a full and fair perspective is the legal obligation of a corporations officers and directors to their shareholders.  It is the one thing all investors should not compromise.  Without fair and accurate data to make our decisions, their can be no reasoned analysis.  Garbage in...Garbage out.

CAPs is all about seperating the noise from the substance.  By CIVIL socratic discourse, it will further that cause.  It is what seperates CAPs from all other boards on investing....IMHO....CAPs is in a class by itself.

Yes, SPF is my whipping boy on this issue.   Investors have lost over a Billion dollars of weatlh while its officers and directors have laughed their way to the bank.  Since I started posting, its CEO and CFO have become defandants in a class action suit alleging providing misleading guidance to shareholders.  Initially, that lawsuit was never disclosed to shareholders......Then abruptly the CEO resigns and takes a BIG severence???

I may be right or may be wrong.....that is only part of the equation.  Using CAPs as a forum where investors can help each other is really the key.

Some of us have a thicker skin than others.....we must be sensitive to that issue going forward.  But it should no squelch free speech or fun competitive spirit.  The success of our nation was built on competitive spirit. Some say that is being eroded lately.  That is anther topic.

CAPs is about investors helping investors.  We should promote that cause as we all benefit.

Just think, 7500 more points and I am beating SpecBear.

Hope we all learned lessons from this one.....especially those that can help make us better investors.

 

 

12 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On May 26, 2008 at 12:25 PM, LordZ wrote:

Shorting a 3 dollar stock makes little sense in the real world...

I scanned over your picks and over 95% are to the downside...

2 positive picks...

wow.

Report this comment
#2) On May 26, 2008 at 12:29 PM, LordZ wrote:

Lesson learned your accuracy on picking stocks is only 33%

you have only 3 positive picks and only one of those 3 is in the positive area... and its not even high enough for you too lock in and take credit...

Yet your score is among the best...

WOW...

 

Report this comment
#3) On May 26, 2008 at 12:43 PM, klemenv (99.73) wrote:

Actually SKF is ultrashort, so green thumb is in reality double red thumb.

 

Report this comment
#4) On May 26, 2008 at 1:10 PM, bellard (99.45) wrote:

Al;

I was hoping this negative thread was over, yet you continue...not unexpected. Yes I did reply to your constant attacks, and harassment's with negative language, and I do regret doing so.

You appear to enjoy dragging others down to your level. If anyone wants an unbiased view of Alstry - go to the SPF yahoo message board and read his attacks on anyone with a different view of SPF.

Also as I have blogged, Alstry is the only poster I have ever encountered who creates numerous false Yahoo id's like beltard, belturd, etc. He did this since I put him on ignore very soon after I was harassed back in Oct - and this was the only way he could continue his harassment.

 He continued to post under these false aliases until Yahoo had to delete him - I have the records of these necessary yahoo records if anyone needs to confirm.

 This is what CAPS will become if Al has his way.....We will lose more intelligent investors like Floridabuilder, whom alstry harassed solely due to FB slight positive stance different from alstry's "truth".

This will be my last response on this thread, and I hope CAPS just deletes all these yahoo like blogs..... 

Report this comment
#5) On May 26, 2008 at 1:22 PM, alstry (35.70) wrote:

You are missing the point my friend.

What is one man's attack is another man's defend.

Wars have been fought over this issue, lives have been losts, and all for what?  The wrong or different perspective on a benign issue?

The world is full of spin.  Read SpecBear's motto.  Our job on CAPs is the sift the wheat from the chaff and with the distilled result have a foundation to take actionable steps. 

This is the lesson to be learned.  Not who said what or when. 

I knew this from the beginning and knew this would be the result.  A far more important lesson has been raised, identified, and concluded than the pettiness you are focusing on.

Please get over it and move on....I did.

Report this comment
#6) On May 26, 2008 at 2:05 PM, thisthatother47 (88.49) wrote:

Bellard - his point was that he was giving one person's side of the argument, which can be skewed - much like the analysts.  He said that right in the post.  He even says you "may be right about him".

After seeing this list, I don't feel so bad about the ONE time I called you an idiot in November - which I found doing a search of all my yahoo posts after you claimed a couple days ago that I had attacked you.

Seriously, let's move on - he's using this as "Evidence" of his thesis, not as a means to keep this fued going.  Granted, I'll give you that he seems to like to twist the screwdriver a bit. ;)

Lordz, I guess it just shows, when he's right, he's really right.  In life, if you are completely wrong 5 times, at most you can still only lose half of what you gain by hitting one 10-bagger- yet you only had a 16% accuracy ratio to get those profits.

Report this comment
#7) On May 26, 2008 at 6:36 PM, alstry (35.70) wrote:

You are missing the point my friend.

What is one man's attack is another man's defend.

Wars have been fought over this issue, lives have been losts, and all for what?  The wrong or different perspective on a benign issue?

The world is full of spin.  Read SpecBear's motto.  Our job on CAPs is the sift the wheat from the chaff and with the distilled result have a foundation to take actionable steps. 

This is the lesson to be learned.  Not who said what or when. 

I knew this from the beginning and knew this would be the result.  A far more important lesson has been raised, identified, and concluded than the pettiness you are focusing on.

Please get over it and move on....I did.

Report this comment
#8) On May 26, 2008 at 8:01 PM, alstry (35.70) wrote:

Thisthat,

Bellard thinks you are me.  Logically, if you do a post and address it to Bellard, until his perspective changes, you should craft the content with that perspective in mind.  Otherwise you are pissing in the wind that is blowing right back towards you.

Further, as far as being short only on CAPs....only a lunatic would engage in such behavior.  In CAPs, and in real life, your short positions can have unlimited losses and your gain is limited to 100 or your initial investment.  On the otherhand, when long you have unlimited upside and your downside is limited to 100 or your initial investment.

By the way, I just noticed you havn't started your CAPs picks yet...if you want to try to rocket to the top of CAPs players in a relatively short period of time....I suggest you red thumb every publicly traded homebuilder tonight until the end of the year or you reach 500 points....whichever comes first.

Good luck.

Bellard,

Now you have to wonder whether I am talking to myself or there really is a thisthat......even I am confused so don't be too hard on yourself.  Further, since I have comtemplated whether you have bipolar disorder, your believing my having a mulitple personality would be DSM consistent with my perspective of you.

Report this comment
#9) On May 26, 2008 at 9:53 PM, thisthatother47 (88.49) wrote:

If I'd have started making Caps picks back in the day I would've enjoyed a great ride down from the $30's in each of WM, CFC, FED, and NCC - once I missed entering those my interest waned.  Now'd probably just end up entering picks as a "hedge" to my real portfolio - which would likely be disasterous, which I guess would be a good thing. 

Now I'm confused too.  Darn wind.

Very well written response on FB's blog.

Report this comment
#10) On May 26, 2008 at 10:38 PM, alstry (35.70) wrote:

Never too late to start,

You get the same number of points if a stock drops from 5 to 1 as you do if it drops from 25 to 5.  It is all about percentages relative to the market.  This is sorta like some of the debates I had with Bellard when he called me names focusing on only one stock.  I tried to explain to him investing was simply about percentages.  CAPs actually brings this element into the score.

I recently figured out a couple stratagies a week ago.  There are a few tricks I have learned but I am sure the players can teach many more.

For example, if you red thumb from 30 to 15 and stop.....you get 50 points assuming the market has made no move either way.  Then if you reset your short again and it drops from 15 to 0, you get 100.  In sum you get 150 points versus only 100 if you rode it from 30 to 0....this is where caps is a bit different than real life investing.

So it really doesn't matter when you start playing.  Only where you start and where you stop.  It is a game of percentages not actual price movements.

But since we are one and the same....why am I telling you this?

Report this comment
#11) On May 27, 2008 at 12:08 AM, anchak (99.83) wrote:

Alstry there was a good point you raised about Salary disparity between the US and Emerging economies and possible migration. I think that's a great pertinent topic - especially vis-a-vis consumer consumption.

I was wondering whether you have some analysis , numbers at your disposal which you could share.I am curious - since due to inflation and other factors - there has been a steady upward adjustment of remuneration in these economies and the dollar slide has not helped. ( read the top bear pitch on INFY - Infosys limited ,one of my favorite companies and holdings)

I think its better you drop this and move to better constructive things - like the lucid commentary on your SPF stance on last comment on FB's blog.

 

 

Report this comment
#12) On May 27, 2008 at 7:44 AM, alstry (35.70) wrote:

I think my encouraging another to start playing CAPs is very constructive.  I look forward to thisthat's picks and insight.  I think all CAPs members should spread the word of this wonderful game and forum.

Report this comment

Featured Broker Partners


Advertisement