I definitely got VTG wrong however, that was a good learning experience and so far the only hiccup I've faced. The major mistake there was misreading VTG's poor competitive position. I've done a lot of reading and research since then and am much better placed not to make that mistake in the future.
There is no doubt that I'll make other mistakes in the future, but I'll own those mistakes, seek to learn from them, and endeavor not to repeat them. I won't let fear, blanket mistrust, and group think get in the way of thinking for myself, at the risk of making a mistake, in the pursuit of becoming a better investor.
I absolutely agree with
@gosouth that a healthy dose of skepticism's is important in investing however, I think that a lot of posters here have a blanket mistrust of all market participants and make little effort to investigate the reality of the matters before them. This is counter productive. A lot of these concerns can be releived by a call / email to investor relations. Skepticism and not taking everything at face value is important but having these views without also researching the situation deeply to come out with a balanced, reasonable view is just as bad as accepting everything blindly. This is why I place particular value in the contributions
@joewolf makes to this discussion.
In addition to that, short term thinking abounds. PGC's story has been playing out for years and will continue to play out for many years to come. Single data points often don't mean a lot, it's their position in the larger story which matters. PGC have been selling the same strategy for a while now. It's easy to get distracted by the short term. ALU is a good example. ALU has been selling the same strategy for a long time and that continues to play out but short term thinking and fear abound. I've road out a number of 10/20/30% drops in ALU's share price on it's way to becoming a 3 bagger. If I had let short term thinking scare me into selling out I wouldn't be sitting on the sizable profit I am. That said, I bought in when the PE was around 4-6x earnings so people buying in a 40x earnings may have more to be worried about than me.
[COLOR=#141414]Comments along the lines of "this is a bad report" aren't particularly useful. However, I'm very interested in any thoughts you have on how the recent announcements fit into PGC's long term strategy and any impacts they may have on the company over the next 3-5 years. [/COLOR]
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