“What if people took what you say as honest truth like all of your comments ? You are playing a very dangerous game with your relentless criticism of MSB, playing with people's emotions and creating a high level of doubt that may induce financial losses.”
Reggie,
By precisely the same token, what about – when the stock was $9, $8, $7, $6 etc – the people that took all the many favorable, positive comments that have been posted for years, to be “the honest truth”, and held onto their stock, which is now worth far less?
What about those people?
I don’t see you complaining about the HotCopper members who over the past four years posted – frequently – all sorts of rosy and positive things about the stock; yet the stock price has fallen dramatically.
What about the losses all those positive comments may have caused?
How “dangerous” is the game of using the exact opposite of your term of “relentless criticism” – i.e., relentless bullishness – which could create a false sense of confidence that not only may induce financial losses, but which, in fact, has indeed already brought about financial losses.
And significant financial losses, in some cases.
And don’t give me any of the bunkum of, “Oh, it’s just a paper loss, so the MSB share having fallen price doesn’t really matter for the long-term, patient investor”. Because all investors have alternatives in which they can invest at all times, and alternative investments that investors could have chosen, instead of MSB, might have performed very well in both relative – as well as absolute – terms.
For example, since your debut positive post on MSB a little over 3 years ago, MSB’s share price has fallen in value by 43%, while the overall stock market over that same timeframe is up by 35%, plus you would have received a further 15% in cumulative dividends had you been invested in the broader market, so an investment in MSB isn’t merely a paper loss, but it is a very real and tangible opportunity cost.
For context, $1000 invested in MSB, at the time that you first started posting your happy thoughts on the stock, would today be worth $573, while an investment in an index fund would today be worth around $1500.
That’s a very significant difference, by any measure.
How do you think the “infant investors” to which you refer feel when they see that foregone wealth?
[And the significant under-performance has occurred even despite a major “big pharma” deal having just been announced – one that some posters are describing as very significant and very positive.]
Yet I don’t see you posting any criticism by you of the people who were saying, “Buy the stock” over many years, while the share price kept falling. I don’t see you accusing them of “destroying the hopes and wealth of the many hardworking people trying to create an investment opportunity.”
Why do you so stridently criticise me for the potential harm that you think posters could cause by being too “negative”, but you say nothing about that harm that has already likely to have been caused by those who have been excessively positive?
Or are you suggesting that “infant investors” listen only what negative posters say, and not positive posters?
Like you, I know investors who have lost money on MSB, by believing all the positive hype that has pervaded this stock for many years.
Why aren’t you berating the purveyors of all the positive hype?
The reason why you aren’t doing so is because you are one of them.
You are one of the posters who, at levels that are a multiple of the current share price, was criticising any poster who said anything that questioned the stock, and you were effectively saying, “Don’t worry, people, don’t sell to the manipulators or the shorters; it’s still a good investment.”
What about the “infant investors” who took your comments and posts as the “honest truth”?
What about the financial losses they have suffered?
And you’ve got the gall to lecture me with veiled threats of “it’s a dangerous game I’m playing with people’s emotions”?
“I KNOW some infant investors have been scared off and sold out at losses because of this, hence my comments on destroying people's wealth. I would not like to have this on my head, particularly if the company goes on to achieve greatness. Think for one minute the impact your furious and, IMO unjustified, negativity might have.”
You make it sounds as though it is my fault that people have incurred losses.
Was I the one telling them to buy the stock at far higher price levels? Was I the one saying, “Don’t sell; it’s just the manipulators and the shorters,”? Was I the one in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 saying that next year is going to be THE great year for Mesoblast?
When I first posted on MSB, the share price was some 30% higher than it is today. How could I have caused losses given that fact?
What about the influence your many overwhelmingly positive comments, as well as the overwhelmingly positive comments of others – over a long period of time – have had in “destroying people’s wealth”, given the fall in the share price over many years?
When will you ask those posters how they feel having that “over (their) heads”?
Have you “thought for one minute the impact” that your – and other – posts of “furious”, and now clearly unjustified positivity, has had?
Or is your hypocrisy so deeply influenced by blind faith that you don’t think in those terms?
“You have yet to properly explain why you spend so much time here. I As I have said previously please desist if you are not a holder. It's just unAustralian.”
I have explained at great length. You just choose not to hear it.
And there’s nothing I can do about that, except to repeat myself:
(Extract from Post # 15098067):
“All I am trying to do is to point out aspects of investing in businesses that I think people overlook. At the risk of sounding brazen, I like to think that I am a good investor (without boasting, my track record over many years bears that out).
For reasons that I won't go into, I have been extremely fortunate during my many years of involvement in the stock market, which has left me financially independent at an comparatively early age, and all I am trying to do is to put something back into the system, by trying to help other people; help them by providing examples of businesses that make for good investments that have a great track record for wealth creating for their owners, by pointing out the important things to look for when it comes investing in the stock market, as well as how to be more rigorous and critical in their analysis, so that they may avoid repeating the many mistakes all investors make a some stage of their investing lives.”
As for me acting in an “un-Australian” manner, how on earth can having an opinion or a viewpoint – be it positive or negative – have the notion of “Australian-ism”, or otherwise, applied to it?
But if you insist on labelling opinions and views on stocks as “un-Australian”, or otherwise, how much more “un-Australian” is saying negative things about a stock which could cause people to miss out, than having people already losing out because of all the positive things that have been said?
Which action is more likely to be “un-Australian”? The one that has prevented loss, or the one that has caused loss?
Which outcome do you think our fellow Australians would feel happier about?
And I have no idea what the relevance why being a holder makes posting on a stock more permissible than for non-holders.
This is a discussion board. It operates on democratic principles. Democratic free speech being a cornerstone principle of being quintessentially “Australian”.
In fact, HotCopper’s very definitional existence owes itself to principles of differing opinions. That means anyone can post. They can post whatever their opinion and belief is.
And those opinions and believes can, in turn, be refuted or ignored.
But they can’t be muzzled, which evidently is what you really want.
Given your treatment of other “non-positive” posters in the past, and your clearly impassioned appeal to me to “desist” from posting, what you seem to want to a forum where only comments and posts you like to hear are acceptable. The rest need censoring, seemingly.
And that is quite the opposite of the Australian way.
The Australian way is one of forthright, frank, candid and open debate where people call things as they see them. It is the exact opposite of that, which is the situation that you would prefer, that I reckon is what is “un-Australian”.
“Your views are so consistent with Macquarie it is extraordinarily suspicious.”
Yes, so you have said on many occasions. In fact, you once went so far as to post that you had hard proof that I did indeed work for Macquarie Bank. Do you remember that? I suppose not. It occurred right after you called me a “dickhead”, which I suppose you have also conveniently forgotten.
Yet you and I both know that your allegation of having proof I worked for Macquarie was an outright lie.
You accuse me of being “un-Australian”. Well, how about outright lying? How “Australian” is that? It not only sounds “un-Australian”, but it smacks of sheer desperation.
Incidentally, I am very pleased you mentioned Caltex. For that is a stock that Macquarie Bank have had a SELL recommendation on for years, and had a target price of $14 when I first started buying the stock. Macquarie still has a sell recommendation today, with a target price of $30-odd.
Yet I have been – as you rightly point out – a raging bull on the stock for that past two years.
How does that reconcile with your desperate “he/she-is-obviously-part-of-the-Macquarie-machine” line?
“I'm all for constructive analysis. In fact I welcome it. We all know the risks associated with a biotech. But not everything MSB does, either product wise or deal/partnership wise, is negative. I mean come on. You have not posted one positive comment on the company, when most rational, clear thinking investors would say things are progressing well for a biotech at this stage of its development.”
You are not for “constructive” analysis, nor do you welcome it. What you welcome is glowingly positive commentary, no matter how lacking in substance or truth it is.
I have read all of your posts on MSB – as I have for every prominent poster – going back for years.
Let me know if you want to dig out posts of yours from the past where you have been nothing less than hostile to posters who weren’t “positive”; hostility that included outright lying and swearing.
“The time you spend on a stock you don't own is breathtaking. Conversely, on the Caltex thread you are almost falling over yourself in singing its praises as an investment proposition. Most obvious difference being you ARE a holder.I'm sure you are a highly intelligent person but I just want a succinct answer to the question we have all been asking for months: Why do you spend so much time here smashing the company when you don't own stock? Come on give it to us in one simple sentence.”
As requested, the One Simple Sentence:
I want to help people become better-informed investors, just as some people have taught me how to become better informed.
(Sure, go ahead. Laugh, scoff and pour scorn on the notion that someone can possible have an agenda that is legit; I really don’t care).
PS. In an ensuing post I will offer my opinion on MSB’s Appendix 5C, released to the market on Friday afternoon, after market. I make no apology in advance to the extent that the tone and content is not to your ebullient liking.
(20min delay)