$8 target, page-78

If you want my view it is this. Modern society increasingly looks for answers and blame someone else if it doesn't get, sense or feel want society thinks it should.

How many internet warriors have run a company as complex as S&G?

These days most people seem to want absolutes, heaven help us if something goes not exactly to plan. I was as p*ssed of as the next person when after completing my census it wouldn't save and all was lost - after an hour though I reasoned no point in getting upset it will be fixed and though it shouldn't have happened it did. I am p*ssed off when my football team doesn't win, I may be angry and want the whole team and coach sacked in the heat of the moment but I calm down and don't go calling for the coach's head like many do.

If think about the market from a different angle. Let's assume management must get everything perfect or they don't deserve to be in charge. In terms of capital markets there could never be meaningful gains beyond the company's growth projection (say 5% pa). Why? Because every stock would be perfectly priced due to expectation that management cannot get anything wrong either terminal or mistimed. Therefore a share price would always represent the foreseeable, predicable cash flows.

All of that is summed up in the term 'risk'. It is risk that creates opportunities and threats. Risk applies to management making everyday decisions on strategy, and risk applies to investors taking a punt on a company's direction.

So no I don't blame management. They spelled out the risks and I considered those risks before deciding it was a company I liked the look of. There has been times where my belief has been tested to the extreme but at all times, though questioning, I eventually come back to it's my call and I still like what I see.

The only time I waver from that thinking is if it is proven management have knowingly lied to investors. Unfortunately we don't normally know that until after the event and then it is too late.

That is not to say I blindingly agree with managers in every company I invest. There are occasions when I change my mind and see things differently but that is not a reflection on management just me see a better place for capital.