Claude is indeed a class act, and so are relatively permanent "gold bulls" like George Cole. I have exchanged ideas with George on gold for almost six years now, and while we more often than not, disagree on the issue, we keep our discussions to our findings, not to characterization of those findings.
As for the characterization of "laying down in front of a speeding train" (and many have added to pick up a lose change), I would say it is a little misleading, and that is because I report all trades, the successful ones and the failing trades as well. Unfortunately, I never know for sure if the rain is leaving the station for higher or lower grounds. When it leaves in the right direction, those "reckless" jumps result in pretty good profits, the pennies and the losses are on those occasions when the market "zagged", while my model was calling for it to "zig".
I just finished my analysis of the work I have done in qualifying EXPE into the Q, in the last two months, the stock as gone absolutely nowhere, doing it quite fast (all the way down to $37 or so and back to where we started in the $50/$54 area), a total of 64 trades of which 11 were actual losses, yet the average gain over the whole exercise was $.5/trade, since 40% of my trades are not successful (namely, the desired gain of 2% per trade minimum is not achieved), on top of the 11 losing trades there were another 14 trades that where of the "for pennies" class. The fact that 40% of the trades are indeed losing or for pennies, obscures the fact that 60% of the trades are successful and yield the 2% plus results. There is nothing reckless in saying to oneself 40% of the time, you were wrong this time, get out with either a minor loss (sometimes a real hit as well), but staying in those trades that yield the desired 2% plus gains. If one an achieve a 60% hit rate of good trades, and not let the losing positions become catastrophic, a consistent 5% to 10% per month can be achieved on those day traders (the EXPE venture over the last two months has actually achieved a 30% plus per month, unfortunately, that is compensated by some hits in other stocks). I would say that that is a conservative approach, if one has the inclination to do day trading. I limit this activity to the 10% to 20% of the equity folio, simply because I cannot handle much more.
The "swing trades" and the core positions, as well as the conservative "Dow gambits", are designed to bring in yields in the 20% to 35% per year (so far the two Dow gambits this year are getting close to the 35%, providing the next few weeks do not bring catastrophic behavior).
Zeev
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