The world is evolving, or perhaps devolving....depending on your point of view.
I'm finding more and more people insist on viewing things in absolute terms, as being right or wrong, black or white, good or bad. It doesn't matter if its politics, religion, or even stocks. Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, a lot of people insist on seeing one as a saint and the other as the devil. A particular faith or denomination is either on the side of God or its in league with Satan. And with publicly traded companies the same dynamic plays out, stocks are either awesome or garbage for some people.
I write a lot about the lessons my late great father taught me from his days working on both Bay and Wall Streets, blending in my own experiences working in the financial services industry. Dad taught me things like: "Don't marry a stock, especially those that are purely speculative". And "You'll never go broke taking profits".
My Dad was a great teacher. But so was my late great mother.
Back in my teenage years I was drawn into a particular faith group. How? Uhm, I think her name was Tanya. It wasn't a total shift from the religious upbringing of my youth, but this was an evangelical bunch and they knew for certain the path to salvation and eternal life, or so they claimed at least.
My Mother didn't discourage me from attending their worship services or their activities. Her only advice was to maintain what she called a "healthy bias". Mom was a smart woman. If she had forbidden me from participating, or made a big deal of it....Who knows? I might just be on a street corner somewhere testifying, or maybe on TV using my faith to heal the sick and afflicted.
I came to hold the view that on some points they were right, others I didn't agree with....and a lot of it, I was in between and unsure. In my experience that's a healthy view, and I find it takes strength to admit that you don't have all the answers. Only idiots are convinced they know everything.
Now to bring this back to stocks.
There are many social media participants who approach investments with the fervour of a religious zealot. There are posters to various sites who certainly view Ziopharm this way. That's what I found when I did my first Seeking Alpha blog post on Ziopharm in 2015 expressing the opinion that at $13+ it represented a speculative bubble: A Speculative Bubble Poised To Collapse?
When I published that I was roasted by the faithful in the comment section. I quickly found out what Galileo must have felt like when he dared to publish his theory that the Earth rotated around the Sun, or Scopes for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. I was a heretic.
Why did one opinion cause so much consternation?
In some cases I think its merely nervous shareholders who lack confidence in their investment, feeling a need to defend their position from any and all perceived attacks. But in other cases I think the reasons are more insidious, with professional industry players looking to stir up as much buying as possible so sellers can get the best possible prices for the maximum number of shares being dumped.
I've seen the same thing with ABRW lately, anyone who doesn't buy into the forward looking promise is attacked.
And its not just pumpers who are desperate to convert the great unwashed, so called "bashers" are no better. They're often desperate to convince others that they are stock market experts who never make a mistake when they tell others to dump a stock.
There's one joker on Twitter who plays both sides, alternately pumping with abandon and then bashing like crazy. Joe Natural with the handle @ChinaStockPro was trashing RLYP repeatedly, posting negative comments with a youtube video of a tree crashing to the ground: "TIMBERRRRR"!!!
JoeNatural
$RLYP - oh my, only one word to describe investor faith in this management team's ability to execute
How did RLYP do? It's now trading at almost $32 after a buyout deal with Galenica for $1.2 billion in cash. Back on May 27th it closed at less than $20 when Joe posted his bashing message. Obviously a massively bad call by Mr. Natural, unless of course he was playing that video in reverse.
Now this same false prophet and self proclaimed stock market expert is applying the same energy he used to bash RLYP and channelling it into pumping ABRW. We shall see how that works out.
Bottom line? Be very wary of those who tell you they're never wrong. If someone tells you they have the keys to the kingdom and you buy into their hype you might just get to heaven only to find that someone changed the locks.
Absolutely love it. Couldn't have said it better myself.
ReplyDelete