Ann: Successful Completion of $120m Underwritten Placement, page-233

Haha.

Today was one of those rare days to be savoured, in fact it was much better than you suggested because I didn't by 360 stock, I bought the warrants geared at 4 to 1 and then doubled up on them yesterday. I hold stock or warrants in all of these companies (both in the case of WTC), but of course, I have my losses too. My other pick is RHC - so I'm glad that I didn't put that one in the list - but hopefully the report will turn that on on it's head.

Though more seriously, as I've said before on this forum, we all celebrate the big wins and sometimes crow about them, but that isn't really what it is about. It's about building wealth and holding onto it. I've had good success over the years, but never through picking big winners and backing them to the hilt, but simply by learning to avoid the big losers. I've been killed a few times on the small-cap end of the market and used to be terrible at picking small stocks. These days I'm far better at it because I've learned a couple of things. Here's my brief list:

1) Never trust management promises unless you've gone back through their announcements and they have a history of delivering on them (or at least not delivering on them)
2) Focus on the revenue and growth (the financials), not the pretty story
3) Don't buy stocks that are a long way from profitability, they're for the tattslotto players
4) Look at the downside harder than the upside. You win when you rarely lose, but if a stock goes broke you've lost all your earlier winners and turning them into losers.

As I've posted many times here before, I dropped out of DRO well below the current price because of the management. Lots of people on this forum attempted to dance on my grave for that. My response is that I did extremely well out of DRO, but when the red flags start waving I'm out. I "missed out" on a gain here but have never regretted it because I held to my disciplines and I know when I don't I'm going to get bitten. I listen to the crowd because sometimes they're right (which is why I'm here despite the abuse), but don't follow them.

To be honest, I wasn't thinking about what I wrote yesterday and laughed when I saw Tadpole's post. I noticed that for all today's gains, not one person put even an "upvote" on it, let alone a "great analysis" - I like the irony in that. I guess it pays to go your own way... today's party is over, it's time to go back and try to make sure I don't get killed on Monday.