No. of Recommendations: 22
It has taken me many years of diligent study to appreciate how little i know.
Jim, this post risks to offend you --- which is not at all my intention. But all my life my biggest weakness was that I couldn´t stand people being "blind", tried to open their eyes --- which always got me in trouble, maybe now again.
But part of that luck is the dates/prices of entry and exit. Of the five you mention, I've made enormous amounts on three, roughly flat on one, and a loss so far on the last, so overall I'm happy with the luck of that list. The loser, Carmax ... Dollar Tree and Alphabet are the two stocks from which I've made the most money over my investing career, other than Berkshire.
With out of those 5 the loser being Carmax and enormous amounts on Dollar Tree and Alphabet, I had a closer look how it´s possible that Dollar General was either your third big winner or flat, as Dollar General is heavily down since the recommendations.
Dollar General is well suited to a case study as at the top of the craze in this forum, in 2023, there was a super-long thread with 114 posts about it (subject "Dollar General"), plus another with 22 posts (subject "Dollar General"). Let me first quote when Dollar General was recommended by you at what prices, then the conclusions I draw from my "study".
For perspective: Dollar General is at $114. The threads started mid-June 2023, with Dollar General then around $160, a price it never again reached (just touched it for a few days in April 2024).
13.Jun´23 (Post 2385): "A bit of a pop today, now at $159.90. If that was the bottom (ha! heard that before...) then my "kinda pounding the table" response will have missed the bottom by 19 cents."
(You nearly called the TOP ($172) instead of the bottom - though Manlobbi might also have thought "bottom": Manlobbi 14.Jun´23 (2398) "It is now $164 this morning, a day after the $159.90. That is up 8.3% from $151.46 over 2 days. If you can sustain this, Jim, you will be achieving for many Shrewd'm readers an annualised return of 1.083^(365/2) = 2 million times starting capital.")
17.Jun´23 (2427): "The current price of $164.32 is still quite a better than where I bought on this dip."
23.Jun´23 (2213): "Looks pretty good to me at (currently) $172 and change ... It might be a bit of a wait for a position to do well"
23.Aug´23 (3211): "Current price $160.95. I just bought a bit more." and "I think an upswing will come soon enough."
23.Aug´23 (3327): "I set a limit for how much I was going to buy. Blew through that yesterday."
25.Aug´23 (3328): "That's high enough that you could put in some substantially more conservative assumptions and still get a nice return ... And today's price seems to offer at least a thin margin of safety."
27.Aug´23 at $170 (3356): "My DG position is now #2 in my portfolio after Berkshire."
You were by far not the only one convinced about Dollar General´s future (Lear, 24.Aug´23 (3309): "I'm holding a heavy amount"). Many were. But you were DG´s strongest proponent --- and completely wrong no matter how much money you might have made.
Why? Because up to today, 3 years later, it´s future was simply lousy, and if for you it was either a big winner or flat, your "But part of that luck is the dates/prices of entry and exit." is more true than you might realise. It was not part, it was everything! And in case it was your third big winner then only because with heavy leverage (options) you went in and out and in and out.
For everybody else though, following all those recommendations and buying stock with the perspective "It might be a bit of a wait for a position to do well" it was a total loser.
I think this illustrates how dangerous it is to follow whatever recommendations from whoever (and if it comes from the most respected poster it´s just soooo tempting), a point I know you agree with as you said that yourself more than once.
