friday, page-46

Robbbbbb

I am no CEO so I have no idea.

However buying a huge aluminium producer at the top of the market and selling assets after a huge market downdraft doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

Obviously survival is always key, but it suggests that when they buy in the future it will be after prices are much higher for assets again.

I know BHP usually do that and were lucky to escape this time, only because of RIO's tenacity.

NAB is very good at buying overseas banks in GB or US just in time to lose a fortune and get rid of them.

I think I could do that without much training.

I might apply for the CEO position and promise to just do the opposite of any idea the directors and others in management come up with.

Lets face it, all these people are failures. Worse than that, they are eternal optimists. Longer and stronger, super boom etc, etc. How do these people actually qualify. Obviously they don't study history but I have heard you can buy degrees over the internet from phantom institutions.

Remember on the BHP thread how Kloppers was a god a year ago. He wasn't like previous management they said, and yet it looks like he may have escaped out of pure luck. Of course there is a long way to go and many more companies to go under or be taken over. We can make a better assessment in about 5 years.

Even a simpleton like me called for the next dot.com bust to be in commodities. I also said that the US banking index was exactly following Armstrong's top from Feb 2007 and should fall hard into March 2008. In fact it was worse than that, but I at least got a major part of that correct.

Likewise from $48/49 for BHP the obvious turndown was into Oct/Nov 2008 and hard and my low of $24 was exceeded.

Doesn't mean I can manage a company but perhaps my timing would have been more important.

I know you are a great timer and if you decide to apply, I won't fight you for any senior position, lol.