Here is an oft repeated course of events.1. FD tells HC punters they should be wary of a particular stock / its management.
2. The punters rage; oh do they rage. “DOWNRAMPER!” “SHORTER!”“YOU HAVE NO IDEA!” “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE AN OPINION IF YOU DON’T OWN THE STOCK!” (Editor’s note: FD has only shorted a few things in his time, and he hasn’t shorted anything for about four years now.) These attacks are often numerous and relentless.
3. Sometimes the stock goes up in the days / weeks / months after FD’s input. When that happens, the punters get very excited and they waste no time in broadcasting their smugness. “WE TOLD YOU WE WERE RIGHT!” “HAHAHAHA I LOVE SEEING SHORTERS GET THEIR FACES RIPPED OFF!” “THIS THING IS NEVER GOING DOWN BOYS, WE’RE ALL GONNA BE RICH AS CROESUS!!!” (Editor’s note: the “Croesus” bit is artistic licence; it seems rather unlikely that more than a handful of HC’s users even know who Croesus is.)
4. Sometimes the stock turns to shite (often after it has in the interim gone up; refer point 3 above). When that happens, many of the punters get stuck in the first stage of grief for a very long time. FD recalls several such punters from the SBB forum particularly (and to a lesser extent the ISX forum), and doffs his cap to any lads from that data set who are reading this post today. Other punters, however, move past denial and graduate to grief stage two: anger. And that anger is again often directed at FD. No rational explanation for that can be discerned. FD was warning those punters, which is the very opposite of encouraging them to buy! Yet their fury at losing money, often to charlatans, must be directed somewhere – and many choose poor FD as their target. Sad.
5. Sometimes FD will remember which punters initially raged at him. When that happens, FD will occasionally remind those punters of their hubris and folly, and confirm that had they listened to him they would not be in their current predicament. More often than not, they will then complain that FD is being nasty to them, and/or declare FD to be immoral. FD is amused by such hypocrisy when it presents, for as his pappy used to say, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”. Apropos those punters who were not so nasty to FD, FD - as one who has himself lost much to crooks in his time - empathises deeply, and wishes them a better outcome in their future investing endeavours.
(20min delay)