what a pile of schist, page-12

Joewolf,

You only have to look at the politics of recent times to see that in many two sided debates, opponents put the topic to one side from time to time and play the man. It hasnt been one-sided here either. Bacci's latest post has him questioning me as an employee or a consultant of Penrice and for the third time he accuses me of leaking information on the loan covenants.

I think we have to accept a bit of playing the man in this debate and the one good thing in my view is that having two sides to the argument has led to a better thread than most I have seen here at Hot Copper.

Just in regard to the idea of posters being competitors, if I agreed with that I doubt I would be here. I am a full time investor and have been so since 1995, so I think I give more than I get on these sites. One of the reasons I take part is that I believe that investing is not a zero sum game and particularly so in the small illiquid stocks. If one of you has a win on Penrice that doesn't mean it will be at my expense. One of the main reasons I take part is to draw attention to the value I see in a stock and try to increase the body of participants and interested parties. The stock price is the end result of supply and demand and if you increase the demand inevitably you increase the share price. That said, I dont ever spruik today and sell tomorrow. Besides being unethical, it is the surest way to ruin your reputation and your following. If the stocks I spruik reach a price I consider worth selling at in two years rather than four say, then I double my returns long term. Also as I mentioned before, a company's wellbeing isnt independent of the stock price and particularly one like Penrice which has been struggling in recent times. The killing of the share price by talk of sick dogs, death spirals, the need for capital raisings and suggesting the loan covenants are breached can have a permanent detrimental effect on the company's share price and help to kill its chances of recovery. I have taken the view in this case that it is as necessary to question that approach as it is to talk positively about the company itself.

One last point, I don't just talk up a stock for the hell of it. My money is very much where my mouth is here. If I didn't think there was value in Penrice or if I can't put a good case for buying it, then I really shouldn't be there myself in the first place.

But I will get back to the company in coming posts.

GPASAS