Replies to post #111 on DD Support Board and Research Team

[oldberkeley]

Good post. No horse in this race, thankfully, but a lifelong trader and always interested in the mechanics of scams like SAEI.

We're strangers, of course, but please allow me some respectful comments. First, I've often heard people say that they’re "stuck" in a stock. But it's really just that old decision familiar to all traders: do you have a better chance in a reasonable amount of time of getting back to even holding the stock or should you sell at a loss, take that money, buy something else, and make it back there? Looking at the situation unemotionally—almost mathematically— with no thought of winning or losing often reveals the correct answer.

Second, remember that as Bernard Baruch once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Over and over again on message boards one sees posters confusing these two words. As a corollary to this, there’s a world of difference between an opinion and an expert opinion. I might have an opinion on the polymerization of nucleotides, but since I don’t know crap about chemistry my opinion is worthless.

Third, yes you’ll see a lot of competing interests here and on all stock sites. In 40+ years of investing I’ve found that careful, detailed, complete, time-consuming personal DD usually separates most of the wheat from the chaff; common sense takes care of the rest. Many posters do none of the former and have very little of the latter.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, even a casual reading of the SAEI board or boards like it shows the distressingly large amount of adults who have no idea of the difference between overwhelming, verified circumstantial evidence and mere innuendo or opinion.

Sure, a single piece of circumstantial evidence may allow for more than one explanation, but as it accumulates into a collection each solid fact corroborates the general inference of truth or untruth. Contrary to popular belief, circumstantial evidence is more powerful than direct evidence (eye witnesses lie or make mistakes.) All forensic analysis including fingerprints, blood tests and DNA is circumstantial evidence; a “smoking gun” is circumstantial evidence, as are skid marks showing that a car was going too fast; if you had no money before your neighbor was murdered and now you’re driving a Mercedes paid for with his credit card, it’s circumstantial evidence. But sane and civilized societies use reasoning to connect and build each bit of valid information into an inescapable conclusion.

It’s way more difficult to create a mountain of circumstantial evidence than people realize. And when that mountain is there—just clearly and coolly examine nodummy’s and many other’s Everest of good strong SAEI due diligence— it’s simply illogical and irrational to pretend that it’s not a scam.