One saying that he uses a couple times that I real like is the "Noah principle" which says that "predicting rain doesn't count, building an ark does." I ran into this recently when I recommended to a couple close friends that the Accredited Home Lenders (Nasdaq: LEND) / Lone Star situation (Lone Star had offered to acquire Accredited) would lead to Accredited's shares eventually rising (they were trading well under the acquisition price). Long story short, the deal fell through, but a new deal was struck and Accredited's stock is up significantly. I never bought, but a friend of mine did and made a nice return. He gets the prize for building that ark.
-------------
I always like reading pretty much anything that talks about the potential of investing success for investment pros versus the average Joes (for obvious reasons). So here's another passage that I liked:
Ben Graham told a story 40 years ago that illustrates why investment professionals behave as they do: An oil prospector, moving to his heavenly reward, was met by St. Peter with bad news. “You’re qualified for residence”, said St. Peter, “but, as you can see, the compound reserved for oil men is packed. There’s no way to squeeze you in.” After thinking a moment, the prospector asked if he might say just four words to the present occupants. That seemed harmless to St. Peter, so the prospector cupped his hands and yelled, “Oil discovered in hell.” Immediately the gate to the compound opened and all of the oil men marched out to head for the nether regions. Impressed, St. Peter invited the prospector to move in and make himself comfortable. The prospector paused. “No,” he said, “I think I’ll go along with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that rumor after all.”
So are you ready to jump on the same thing that everyone else is running after? You might want to reconsider.
-AvgJoe
Subscribe!
0 comments:
Post a Comment