Melbourne Cup of LIC's, page-11

uncystu,

You would be absolutely incorrect in making that assumption. I do not work in the finance sector and I have no formal training in finance, economics, accounting or anything else to do with finance. In fact, I have no education past year eleven in high school.

I can understand your thinking that the market would be better regulated and that ASIC would be there to offer better protection for novice investors. Unfortunately, I think generally that by the time ASIC would get involved investors would already be deep in the poop. The GFC really sharpened my focus and made me look deeper at what was going on in the market. I saw some really smart, successful , finance people that would make Stuart look like a carpark attendant , make some very very poor decisions from a professional, intellectual , ethical and moral standpoint. I saw lots of company announcements that "sugar coated" the truth and assured investors that all was okay when they must have known that their empires were crumbling.

I saw well respected directors shrug their shoulders and deny culpability when it was obvious that they had failed to carry out their duties diligently. I saw auditors somehow miss crucial mistakes in annual reports that would have swayed investors decisions. Conflicts of interests where decisions were made to unload crap investments onto shareholders so insiders could make large amounts of money. The list goes on and on. Most of these people walked away with no impending legal action , they had tarnished reputations, but after awhile life went on as normal and they resurfaced elsewhere doing other things. I lost money in a company that wasn't a scam , but in my opinion was sailing very close to the wind and testing the boundaries of what was legal.

I was lucky as I found a company at the depths of the GFC that I invested in that returned what I lost four fold in the next few years.

The moral of the story, however, is the only person responsible for your money ultimately is you. What should or shouldn't happen, is a long way from what actually does happen.

I was sceptical about the pirates from day one and then I saw Stuart interviewed by a financial reporter, I think it was Allen Kholer or someone like him. I then thought well it must be legitimate to some degree otherwise no one reputable would interview him.

Some Red flags:

1. I had never heard of Stuart before but suddenly he burst onto the scene with an unbelievable record of 605% in three years in some fund I had never heard of.
2. The company was based in Queensland.
3. Henry Morgan was being spruiked all over the place on Hot copper.
4. The inter tangled web of companies and cross shareholdings.
5. They wanted to be pirates.
6. I didn't like Stuart's demeanor in his interviews.
7. The move into private equity, chicken wings, hamburger joints etc. These guys were supposed to be the wiz bang traders of financial products and markets.
8. The attempted gagging of The Ten foot investor.
9. A conversation I had with a stock broker.

uncystu I don't know when you came onto the Henry Morgan scene but I can think of at least eight people that dismissed outright any talk of Henry Morgan being a risky investment and to be careful. The threads were full of people criticising ten foot and any posters here that weren't holding Stuart on a pedestal .

Despite my initial concerns I bought into Henry Morgan and was lucky enough to make a reasonable profit in a quick amount of time. The nagging doubts made me sell though and I posted the reasons why I had sold out.

I had one person tell me that I couldn't handle the fact that I had sold out too early and was effectively jealous that other people were making huge money.

I had someone else suggest that my posts and another posters posts were defamation.

I had another poster infer that I didn't know a stock broker and that I never had a conversation with that said stock broker.

There were many other posters that basically were not interested in a discussion on the pro and cons of Henry Morgan, they believed and wanted to continue to believe it was the stock of the century.

They may well have been people that didn't see red flags or couldn't recognise them. There were still people that saw the flags but put on the blinkers or rose coloured glasses to obscure the view.
The thing that frustrates me is it is the same on any stock thread, the moment someone has a contrary view to the rampers they are vilified.
The conversation that I had with that stock broker may have actually saved some people from losing money, but no one wanted to know so I shut up shop and moved on.

I still read the posts on HML and BHD because I'm very interested to see what the final outcome will be.

I have genuine empathy for people that have done their dough here, but the market is a jungle and you need to tread carefully.