Friday, August 22, 2008

I Believe I Can Fly

It takes a man a long time to learn all the lessons of all his mistakes. They say there are two sides to everything. But there is only one side to the stock market; and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.

With me I must back my opinions with my money. My losses have taught me that I must not begin to advance until I am sure i shall not have to retreat. But if I cannot advance I do not move at all. i do not mean by this that a man should limit his losses when he is wrong. He should. But that should not bread indecision. All my life i have made mistakes, but in losing money i have gained experience and accumulated a lot of valuable don'ts. I have been flat broke several times, but my loss has never been a total loss. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here now. I always knew i would have another chance and that I would not make the same mistake a second time.

I believed in myself.

- - passage from Reminiscences of a Stock Operator --







-- Thanks MJ

6 comments:

valuelife said...

Hi Moola,

i have a question 2 ask.

why company's quarterly announcment compare the IS on Qtr to Qtr, but not BS??

Example: IS for Q2 2008 is compared with IS for Q2 2007

BUT

BS for Q2 2008 is compared with BS for FYE 2007. Why??

Another thing - it would be good if you can email me d rest of P.Lynch articles. haha..

Thanks in advance.

Moolah said...

Dear Valuelife,

Sorry I do not have the answer to your question.

rgds

garrychua said...

Dear Moola,

I am very impressed with your analysis on Megan and have learned something from them. My friend is holding on a stock called ENGTEX and after my check on its result, i feel something not right. Trying to ask him to sell but he said the profit is still good. I hope you can have a quick look at the company ENGTEX (5056). I don't want to ask him to sell for the wrong reason. The most important is the reasoning. Thanks

Moolah said...

Dearest Gary,

I would agree very much with you that Engtex is not one of the best 'fundamental' stocks around.

There's no doubt about it.

However.. it's a bit complicated.

It's hard to deny that it had been one of the better performing stock (in terms of stock price) the past month.

So if you ask me, it's gonna be messy trying to advice him what to do.

Personally? I would not dare advice.

rgds

garrychua said...

Dear Moola,

Thanks for the reply. I know is complicated to ask someone to sell when the shares price is performing well. My main concern is the balance sheet show the similarity with Megan, ie profit up but the cash reduce (marginally)and the borrowings & receivable increased by a lot. But that is only based on my "limited knowledge" on analysing stock. Is there any other items that I have to check? Thanks

Moolah said...

Dearest Gary,

Yes, as a "long term investor" these are the issues ("profit up but the cash reduce (marginally)and the borrowings & receivable increased by a lot. ") that you want to be weary about.

Anyway, if you had noticed, recently I had placed a huge question mark over Gamuda. However, the market totally discounted that issue and the stock flew.

So best you can do is to point out to your friend that these issues exist and that they should give it a good consideration.

Advicing on any stock price performance is a total different ball game, for a stock in 'play' could render all analysis and sound reasoning useless.

rgds