Cameron, i pay other people to provide me with the financial...

Cameron, i pay other people to provide me with the financial analysis. But concede i don't give it the detailed attention it deserves. I use a 'top down' approach. i.e. decide which macro suits the times and seek best value stks within that. Take gold. Some i buy are still explorers without completed JORC... but if the drilling results consistently meet/exceed my criteria i take a punt that company has reasonable likelyhood of strong future earnings. My best exmple was discovering MML when it has just started producing gold. Company valued at about 75m. But grades were high and prod costs low. The JORC was very small but my hunch was that the rich geology would probably produce more gold seams. And so it proved to me with company some 2 yrs later worth 1.2bn. Plenty others such as ORE, AMX, FGE, have increased by factor of 5 or more. A company whose fincials i did have a good grasp of was UGL. When it fell to $7 i virtually threw the house at it. I lack your diligence and bent to examine balance sheets scrupiously. Who else would have discoverd CSV CEO spends plenty on helicopter jaunts? LYC at 8c was another stk i believed in, despite dire outlook at the time. Each of us has our own methods. One theme i do 100% agree with u is that 'risk aversion is prime. Yet i lack the discipline to rigidly enforce this rule consistently. Hence, am often my own worst enemy.