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- Manlobbi
Personal Finance Topics / Macroeconomic Trends and Risks
No. of Recommendations: 2
As there are several here who also inhabit the Fool boards 2.0 (which is actually 3.0, by my reckoning include the original AOL version) I will ask here to see if anyone knows.
As I look through some of the posts and threads over there, a typical entry might get several dozen views, a thread perhaps a hundred or two hundred. Then I look at one on Saul’s board - even today without Saul - and the views are like 11,000, or 6,000 or whatever.
I wonder does anyone know how it got to be so big, and so fast? Did it come from somewhere else, or did it grow organically, or what? This is strictly an “inquiring minds” kind of thing; I’m just genuinely curious.
Thanks.
No. of Recommendations: 1
AI bots?
An internet acquaintance (outside the USA) maintains a relatively static web site that displays unit data for a niche video game that was published over a decade ago. Hits to the site recently went from 10's/day to many 10's of thousands a day. Activity was from AI bots, primarily from China
No. of Recommendations: 1
It does seem like a lot of views considering there's only 281 approved posters, but I don't think there's anything unusual about it. The board was created around 2014 and the growth I believe is organic because there's genuinely good discussion about growth companies. Saul started it after he was proven right on his call that Westport was a dud (against the MF rec) and other posters encouraged him to start his own board.
No. of Recommendations: 1
The board was created around 2014 and the growth I believe is organic because there's genuinely good discussion about growth companies. Saul started it after he was proven right on his call that Westport was a dud (against the MF rec) and other posters encouraged him to start his own board.
Thanks for the history lesson. All I remember is that one day it wasn’t there, and the next thing I knew there were hundreds of posts, thousands of views, and you had to ask permission to get in.
Whew! That’s quite a story - I just find myself asking “how did all those lurkers find out about it in the first place?” But since I was never one of those, and only *very* sporadically saw the board, I guess I’ll never know.
No. of Recommendations: 0
I followed the Saul board 4-5 years ago up until the Gardner bros retired. I had some good returns on smaller allocations to some of the discussed SAS companies. Too volatile/risky for larger "bets" IMO. But being present during the growth phase of some of these "Saul stocks" was highly profitable, even in the absence of financial data to justify involvement.
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 2
I found him to be a thin-skinned narcissist who enjoyed a bunch of loyal sycophants on his board telling him how great he was. He thoroughly enjoyed his privilege controlling posting and banning people. He created drama personally and nurtured it in others. I found him unlikable and his board to be toxic.
His investing style was momentum and his timing was excellent in that regard. The best I can say is that he really took off during the inflow into SaaS but he dropped them without missing a beat. Some of his followers weren't that lucky. And, it's really their fault, because he takes pains to say to not follow his investing (even though he posted regularly and updated his portfolio monthly, and banned people for disagreeing with him!)
I think Saul was significantly responsible for the downfall in the quality of the boards over there.
No. of Recommendations: 0
There's a difference between price momentum and business momentum. Saul's investing philosophy was based on the latter.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Did I make that distinction?
I gave him a complement. He had an investment philosophy that performed well and hit a particularly fantastic stretch when ARR and NDR were in peak vogue and SaaS was in its golden age, that is when he put up the truly gaudy numbers. He's clearly a successful investor just based on what he's publicly posted.
When the SaaS gravy train ended, he struggled. BILL, ENPH, UPST were notable duds and his timing into a number of other positions was not great. If you tried to question a position, you were run out of the board. The dynamic led to his followers frequently taking losses on this even after he sold a stock. It was sad to watch the various ephemeral board luminaries cargo-cult his style, post the characteristic monthly portfolio updates, but be unable to emulate Saul's ability to sell losing positions. He was supremely confident in a stock until he wasn't.
He never posted audited results, and for my part I didn't entirely trust his full track record. He gave better ex-post facto rationales for his decisions than merited.
Back to the original point, Saul's board grew so fast because he put up a few years of ~100% returns by completely nailing the SaaS trend around 2015. He posted freely about this and a lot of people newer to investing piggy-backed his picks and did really well for a time. It created a durable community, if not a particularly healthy one. To the point about about bots, when it got very popular for (business) momentum picks, I got the distinct impression the board was being astroturfed and sock-puppeted but I have no proof.
