Small Cap Network Blog

Hey y’all. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it lately, so here goes…if you have feedback, questions, or responses to anything we put on the site, the best way to get the word to us is by posting a comment in the blog. We can respond to them faster, and more importantly, we can share your thoughts and our response with everyone. (No need to keep anything behind closed doors, right?).

If you’re worried about having your e-mail address publicized, don’t worry - nobody can see it. If you’re worried about having your name publicized, just don’t add your last name. As long as it’s legitimate, we’ll still publish your comment (plus our response) without a full name.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is in response to an e-mail we got about today’s newsletter on Marine Growth (MGRW) news. The note reads…

According to your blog [newsletter]: “Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE: WYN)…one of the largest hospitality-related companies in the world! They did about $4.3 billion in revenue last year. Let me just say this about that figure - you don’t drive more than $4 billion in sales for any year in any business without knowing what you’re doing.”

Do GM, Ford, Chrysler know what they’re doing? The IRS revenues are 1,000 times that and it is one of the most inefficient and inept institutions in the world. What were the sales of Enron? $111 billion in 2000. Wydham is a good inventment itself, but your writer has the analysis sense of a 15 year old.

Thanks for the feedback, including the pointless insult. It’s great that you completely missed the bigger picture from the commentary and are focusing on a comment that - in the end - really means very little to Marine Growth. In any case…

As I have said repeatedly, I don’t have the corner on investing knowledge. I’m wrong my fair share of the time. Feel free to disagree with anything I say, for now and evermore.

The only thing I ask….make sure you know what your true motivation is. If you want to share knowledge and offer opposing opinions, just state your case. If your only goal is to twist something out of context in order to feel better about yourself, I invite you to unsubscribe from the newsletter - you’re wasting everyone’s time.

I can always separate the amateurs from the pros by the way they think about investing, and what they focus on. Pros focus on ideas that ultimately make money. Amateurs focus on everything else, blame everyone else, and take their failure-related stress out on everyone else. In other words, amateurs have a misdirected agenda.

In response to the reader’s question, yes, I absolutely think GM, Ford, and Chrysler know what they’re doing. Since 1977, Ford shares are up dividend-adjusted 1306%, GM shares are up a split-and-dividend adjusted 1216% since 1962, and Toyota is up 298% since 1993. (Chrysler is no longer public.)

It is true the last couple of years have been a disaster for auto-makers. That’s not a reflection of not knowing what they’re doing; it’s a reflection of the environment.

In the same respect, I think you cherry-picked a group you knew was struggling. There are a lot of multi-million dollar companies with stocks doing considerably better. The fact that you mentioned Ford, GM, and Chrysler makes me wonder if you specifically got burned by them. Perhaps you have an agenda here…one that isn’t really related to the issue at hand. Regardless…

The IRS? Seriously? It’s not a company in the least…I can’t even respond.

Enron? Again, you’re cherry-picking, knowing Enron was a disaster. However, that has nothing to do with big revenues. I can show you companies doing practically no revenue at all, but are still complete scams like Enron was. Size and legitimacy have nothing to do with each other.

You mentioned Wyndham was a good investment. This is the biggest concern of all, as I wasn’t even presenting Wyndham as an investment idea….I was talking about Marine Growth Ventures. Did you even read our comments?

Be that as it may, you’re still free to assume I have the analysis sense of a 15 year old. I’m not going to get sucked into the game. I will, however, point out that it was the same 15 year old analyst that picked Overstock, Merck, and Tenet…our only three non-compensated trading ideas of the year, each of which have been huge winners for our readers.

I guess you missed those, huh?

Anyway, I still stand by what I said…if you can consistently generate billions of dollars per year (legitimately) in revenues, I’m going to assume you at least have enough skills and knowledge to merit my respect. That’s not to say you’re the best of the best, but I still have to give some credit where it’s due.