Thistime, first off, please relax. For the most part, everyone here (including you) has been behaving in a cordial manner, whether or not his/her opinions lean for or against GSPG as a prospective investment at this point in time. This is what is so refreshing about this board versus some others, and I'm sure everyone here (again, you included) would like for it to remain this way.
As I've said before, I find everyone's opinions very helpful (even if they go against my own) because those people are part of the investing public too. While it is useful to know why people are buying a stock, I would imagine that a current shareholder should be more interested in why people are selling a stock. In fact, if you've made the decision (using ongoing analysis and due diligence) to purchase shares and hold a long position, then the reasonings and thought-processes behind others' subsequent purchases of that stock are completely irrelevant to you, and you should assume that they are buying for the same reasons that you did. In other words, you shouldn't care why they are buying it, just as long as they are indeed buying it. This concept is called validation, which most find much comfort in.
Some folks do not interpret the exact same data you see in the exact same way you do. Data and company facts that you include in your "Strength" column very well may be included in someone else's "Weakness" column. For instance, "Investor A" may be thrilled that GSPG has shelved the mining production for now and is focusing all efforts on exploration, while this may make "Investor B" uncomfortable and hoping for a more consevative approach. Regardless, the point is that if you are long GSPG and more "Investor A's" are piling in and posting up a storm on I-Hub but the share price is still falling, who would you be most interested in posting next on I-Hub? Another "Investor A" or an "Investor B"? Do you really want/need more validation for why you purchased a stock, or would you like some insight into who is selling and why? Which information is really more useful to you?
"I am getting a bit sick and tired of all this technical book stuff being applied to this stock."
I feel where you're coming from on this, thistime, but the unfortunate truth here is that investing in common stock is a profession (although some would argue against the professionalism of some of the industry's participants). The vast majority of money that is traded in the markets on a daily basis is not individual investor funds in online brokerage accounts.
Institutional investors (whether managing money for pensions, mutual funds, sovereign funds, trusts and estate wealth, high-net worth investors, etc) by far account for the largest amount of money currently invested, and they all use the same basic techniques for valuation and analysis (though everyone interprets the results differently). These guys and gals swing with the largest bats out there, and when they take/exit/reduce a position, they move the market for that security pretty far. As such, they have to be absolutely positive and confident in their decisions because they can't just "buy it right back" or "sell it really quickly" if they guessed wrong. When speed and nimbleness are not on your side, then diligence and caution must be.
Like it or not, thistime, the real market movers of any given stock (including GSPG) are using the "technical book stuff" to make their investing decisions, and since they ultimately determine the rise and fall (success and death) of any given stock, then you might find it helpful to learn and embrace these techniques, if only to discover why others (perhaps with more market influence than yourself) are buying and selling your stock. Make no mistake, you and I (and any other individual investors) are basically along for the ride until you can (1) swing with a big enough bat to sustainably move a stock or (2) get into a position where your decisions directly affect the company (as a director, executive, or 5%+ investor).
"I challenge any of you,and NJ Portfolio Investor in particular,to show me that you or anyone else has a better vision and strategy for GSPG..."
That's "NJPortfolioManager", but I won't quibble on the details. As I've said before, my focus and expertise is in managing a portfolio of securities (about 380 of them now, to be clear), which involves constant review, analysis, and decision-making. I have to be confident in the decision to hold/adjust/eliminate/take positions in many different companies on a daily basis, and these companies are part of many different industry sectors. I cannot (and will not claim to be able to) develop an expertise in how to run any of these companies in any given industry. If I did, then I would be in that industry to capitalize and profit from my new-found expertise.
My job is to evaluate how a management team is running a company, and make hard decisions with other people's money on whether to place more/less/none of their money with that company. Nice guys or not, I don't have the luxury of taking a "buy and hope" position with a shiny-eyed executive team and board of directors with polished resumes. The numbers are all my clients are interested in, which means that I have to have the same focus as well. Anyone can invest with a company because they feel it in their bones that it's the right move, but that's not how I'm paid to invest (nor would I do so with my personal account). To borrow your analogy, I absolutely must see "the forest from the trees", and I have no qualms in pointing out a sick tree to keep a close watch on lest it bring down other trees around it.
Bottom line, there is no room for emotion when investing others' money, so why would an investor want to suddenly insert some emotion when investing his/her own? I strongly believe that if an investor becomes highly emotional on small swings of a stock they hold, then one of three things has occured: (1) he/she has taken too large of a position relative to the worth of his/her account, (2) he/she is not 100% convinced of the merits of the investment or has not developed an informed opinion of the reasonable current valuation ranges for the company based on mathematical principles, or (3) he/she is just an emotional person and can't help inserting emotion into their investing methods. Cases 1 and 2 are easily fixed by either reducing a position to a more comfortable level or learning proper valuation techniques which are used by the rest of the investing community, while case 3 is a strong argument for hiring someone else (either a financial planner, mutual funds manager, etc) to invest one's money. I'm not saying that any of these include you, thistime. I'm simply throwing out what I've seen and learned.
Any comments or critiques on this post are absolutely welcomed and encouraged.
AI
