can you believe it, page-27

Barnsty,

In terms of knowing that Kingfisher was going to be a gas find - no, clearly I didn't know this. There is a large degree of luck with all conventional oil and gas drilling. It could just as easily been a duster.


My point about MEL and ESG was simply that some shares make much of their yearly gains in a short space of time (and as such, it is silly to measure their success over a short time period). And so patience, or luck, is rewarded. The periods of stagnation or price weakness make them hard to hold, from a psychological point of view.

I was not trying to post-rationalize MEL's success. Rather, to point out that holding shares who stagnate for long periods is hard, because the behaviour of holding is not regularly rewarded.

Y