Comments on: Mathew Emmert: Fool of Crap

By: Alex Hersonski

Alex Hersonski — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:16:27 +0000

I used to like their radio show, but I must admit it was more about the “fun” than the technical. Let’s face it, no one knows where stocks will go or what will happen. In fact, the best advice is just old fashioned common sense: diversify, and don’t “fool” around with your money. There simply is no way to buck the trend in a down market, even with all the hedge fund type shenanigans (what got us in this mess to begin with). Diversify, according to your needs, age in life, time horizons, and weather the storms like the rest of us. Think of the “Fool” advice as just entertainment of the Jim Kramer variety.

By: Felix Krull

Felix Krull — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:33:18 +0000

20% over the past 5 years running, huh?!!!! Care to qualify that statement a bit, Steve? If that were indeed true you would be one of those “suits”, whom you disparage, running money on Wall Street. That kind of return would place you in the top 10% of hedge fund managers across the globe. So please forgive me if I am, ahem, somewhat skeptical of your stellar results. Of course, on the internet every one is the next Benjamin Graham. Oh, incidentally, I am eagerly awaiting to see how well you do in the next bear market. I doubt it will be so “easy” to find stocks that go up 2% “quickly.”

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:48:27 +0000

Just thought I’d point out I’m up 2.6% on Wendy’s in less than one day, so yes, it’s easy to find stocks that go up 2% quickly.

- Invest in peace…

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:26:04 +0000

Wendy’s may have been a bad example, however there are a gazillion examples of where a stop-loss would have saved you tons of money. XM Satellite at $30, AOL at $120, Sirius at $7 after the Howard Stern announcement. All examples of stop losses working.

A stop-loss doesn’t always work, especially on a huge drop, however you wouldn’t necessarily get $32.25 at the open, as stated in the above example, because the displayed stock price isn’t the actual trade price, the Bid and the Ask are and it would depend what open orders were available when your order came in.

I’m sorry, but I don’t post my net worth on the Net. I wouldn’t expect anyone to, but I will start posting my trades if it makes you happy. I got into Wendy’s today at $34.25 and I sold off Opsware yesterday for $8.74 and I had purchased it a few weeks ago at $6.94.

Happy everyone? Thanks for the support Vince.

– Invest in peace….

By: Vince

Vince — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:40:05 +0000

I looked back at the article where the first sentence said “… bad information and skewed research are the topic of the day.”

So far, I’ve seen “miscalculations”, “corrections” being much of the topic in the comments. =)

I was hoping to hear an answer to Mark’s concern and questions in comment #7. Especially about stop losses being the magical cure-all for avoiding losses. Thanks for the Wendy’s example Mark! Any answers forthcoming, Steve?

By: mark

mark — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 22:45:31 +0000

Steve – Where do you post your net worth and your gains and losses? Surely someone that consistenly beats the market would put their numbers up where we can see them.

I didn’t see the numbers on your regular blog – linked above – but I did see your post about Wendy’s. In it, you claimed that Buy & Hold was dumb because Wendy’s stock dropped from $65 to $32.

If someone had a stop-loss in place, you argued, you could have gottten out at $60 with a small loss, and avoided most of the carnage.

Did you notice that the stock closed at 66 on Oct. 1 and opened at 32.25 the next morning?

A stop loss order would not have sold in the middle of the night to a non-existant buyer at 60. It would have sold the next morning at opening – at 32.25.

So, yeah, I’m really interested in your net worth, and how you’ll do going forward.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 12:37:09 +0000

While I do agree with your point Beardstown, my wording was poor, but if you had read my other articles, my goal is 2% a month gain, so to get 11% in 6 months to me is pretty easy. I’ll be more careful next time to be more specific about those things in the future.

Either way, an active trader should be killing a non-active trader in the market, but I’ll get into that more in future articles. Thanks for the comments.

-Steve

By: Beardstown

Beardstown — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 05:39:04 +0000

Steve, how about a correction to your correction? If you are earning 2 1/2% on that CD over the course of six months, you are only averaging a 5 1/2% return on the other six months that you are in the market (with that annualized 11% return). So come clean and admit you messed up. It’s 8%.

8% over 14%? I know what I would take. The Beardstown Ladies are calling. They want to know if you can keep their books as they look into your claim of 20% annual returns over the past five years.

Just ribbing you on that last point but do take better care of your number crunching when you’re dissing professor Jeremy Siegel. The guy’s a legend.

By: Vince

Vince — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 02:35:32 +0000

I’ll absolutely agree with hindsight being 20 / 20 and that studies are there are nothing more than that… people do put too much stock into “hypothetical models” based on past data.

Kudos for coming with this angle.

By: James Atkins

James Atkins — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 21:13:23 +0000

I agree completely with your article. There is a lot of misinformation out there and to the naked eye it sounds great. When the average investor looks at it they get excited and then upset at their current investments, if they are not doing as well as the articles tells them they could be doing. THe average investor one does not have the means to invest in as many stocks as suggested, two does not have the discipline to sit still for a year or longer. Too many people invest with emotion. Websites like that are good for getting information, but not investment theory. That has to be honed by the individual themselves. Whats good for the goose may not be good for the gander.