Features
A Resolution of Trust
by Mark Robertson, Managing Partner Page 1 of 1
The majority of us commit to a body of resolutions as the Christmas season gives way to the New Year. And with a nod to Wobegon, 52% resolve to achieve success in our resolutions while statistics suggest that a mere 12% reach one of our promised lands.
The usual suspects include:
- Lose weight
- Get out of debt
- Become more organized
- Maintain a diary
- Save money
- Improve grades
- Get a better job
- Get fit
- Eat right
- Get a better education
- Drink less alcohol
- Quit smoking
- Reduce stress
- Take a trip
- Volunteer to help others
- Be less grumpy
- Be more independent
- Learn something new (like, the discipline of long-term investing, for example)
My best success came one year when my only resolution was to avoid making a resolution. I succeeded, lost weight, ate better, took a trip (in fact a mission trip for two birds with one stone) and became less grumpy by really becoming more independent. :-)
We've been down this road before and I documented my success and shared the extreme nature of the challenge in Of Chocolate and Lemonade.
Did you know that the fourth highest day of chocolate consumption is January 4th? Sad, but the average resolution crumbles in approximately four days!
Peer Pressure & Guard Rails
Back to Wobegon, the men achieved success 22% more often when they completed goal-setting and mapped out discrete tasks and milestones. The women found success 10% more often when they disclosed their objectives and pursued Resolution Summit with a group of their friends or family.
Which brings us back to Humpty Dumpty and all the King's men ... because history repeats and things in Wobegon are rarely "different this time." The role of Humpty has been most recently played by the financial services sector in 2008-9. This time, legion after legion of the King's men lost sleep while trying to administer triage to the fragments of one Mr. Dumpty. The truth is that he'll ultimately be back on the wall while the King's chief advisors proclaim that they've suspended gravity and there's no longer anything to worry about.
Human nature is as reliable as gravity. The one constant in dealing with the human factor is that entropy is relentless. One bubble leads to another and we'll -- once again -- be left scratching our heads at some point in the future. It's inevitable.
And it gets in the way of reaching Resolution Summit. One of our founding principles here at MANIFEST is the sense that community can make a difference and even if we're skeptical about the Wisdom of Crowds, the results and facts are hard to ignore.
MANIFEST is intended to be a source of ideas and a common ground refuge as we all seek the discipline of long-term investing using some time-honored tools for investment analysis. And we're better when we lean on each other.
Our track record is building. We can cite a 74.1% accuracy ratio (percentage of selections outperforming the general market) for our Solomon Select monthly stock features or the 6.2 percentage point difference in relative return achieved by the MANIFEST 40. The Solomon Select companies have averaged a gain of 14.7% during a period when the market advanced 1.3%. How about the reality that the Tin Cup model portfolio is back above $700,000 and poised for new highs based on an overall PAR of 14% and strong fundamentals?
Community Christmas Exchange
During the Christmas season, we took a look at the condition of the 40 most widely-followed stocks by MANIFEST subscribers in our Forum-based Christmas Countdown.
This is an opportunity to perform a stock analysis on one of these community favorites and dial it up to see what the consensus buy-hold-sell analysis is for any of them. The first dozen or so have been posted and we'll be posting the rest of them while pipers pipe and turtle doves sing for the next several days. Make your own call and then scroll to the top of the thread for the stocks in the countdown to cast your own buy-hold-sell vote for an instant comparison with the community consensus. It's fun and frankly, probably as addictive as chocolate? :-)
2009 was a good year for us and we look forward to an even better 2010. We'd be honored and grateful if you'd share what you enjoy about MANIFEST with your family and friends. We treasure your contributions and look forward to the development of even stronger resources to make it easier for all of us to lean on each other -- transforming the remnants of resolutions past into discipline and a routine of demystifying long-term investing.
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