"THANKS, TOM. I NEEDED THAT."
by MF BuckAN OPEN LETTER TO TOM GARDNER
Dear Tom,
In your most recent Fribble ("Foolish Guide to Simpleton Investing") you write that "simpleton" investors casually anticipate better returns than doubling the market.
C'mon Tom. Do you have to be so personal?
I may not have doubled the market but I'm pretty good at investing. In fact, from 1990-94 I did a 25% better job than the S&P 500. That's consistent, day-in and day-out performance for years of taking in $5 for every $4 the market advances. By the way, since I outperformed the market that means I also beat the pants off all but a few of the pros. OK, so I haven't beaten the market this year but the fat lady hasn't sung 'cause the year's not over. And now you tell me that I'm not doing as well as the simpletons. HUMPH!
As for simpleton investing, I didn't "casually," as you put it, do anything. I did my homework and lots of it. Geez, Tom! It's not my fault I didn't know about Ann Coleman's famous companion to Beating the Dow. She only placed it in the Electronic Fool a year ago, just a few months after the Motley Fool went online. So it's not my fault. Why if I had known about the market-trouncing BTD approach all along, I bet I could have. . . ummm.
Now that MF DowMan's "Investing for Growth Primer" is on the street, I guess you would tell me about yet another new way of simpleton investing. Oh sure. Easy for you to say. But what fun is it? No enjoyable research. No rush of adrenaline from discovering the undiscovered stock. No thrill from picking a stock that shows how inefficient the efficient market theory really is. None of that good stuff. Just a history of nearly 30% annual growth. . . ummm.
One more thing. Most of the time I beat the market with no more than 60% of my portfolio in stocks. The rest was in cash or Treasuries. Not bad, eh? Now what do you have to say? I got those market-beating results while 40% of my money was in safe investments guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.
Just think about it. Do you have any idea what I could have done if I had put all my investments in stocks? Imagine how I could have beaten the market even more. Why, I probably would have more than doubled the, uh. . . ummm.
As for that bit about casually anticipating more than doubling the market. . . does "casually" include sipping a strawberry daiquiri beneath a palm tree, watching the sun dip below the horizon? Ok, I guess it's tough to be a simpleton, but maybe I could handle it.
Thanks, Tom. I needed that.
Foolishly yours,
Mike Buckley