"My wish is that more individual investors look at cash flows,...

"My wish is that more individual investors look at cash flows, and not accounting profits, when assessing companies for investment."

Isn't this the truth. All about cash flows and discounting future cash flows. Accounting trickery is rife. You need to be able to decipher the books and what method they use to report certain items, depending on what the business actually does.

More investors should rationally look at the difference btw investing and speculating. Buying a company with a NPV of zero becasue it has no cash flow is a speculative investment, and you better be willing to do your dough. Reading HC you get the impression too many posters look at purchases of spec mining stocks as an "investment." It isn't. It's speculating. We all like to do it in the hopes of a quick turnaround or an improbable discovery, but how many people would be better off just putting money consistently into WES, WOW, COH, CSL, ANN etc, and speculating with what they can afford to lose.