Daily Speculations

Dec. 10, 2003

We're at the crossroads with our Web site

Please give us your suggestions and tell your friends if you think Daily Speculations is good, so that we'll be encouraged to improve by providing a daily prediction for six major markets based upon scans, runs and lifetime events, rather than throwing up our hands and succumbing to Gresham's Law the way we did with our CNBC Money column and our worst-selling, unadvertised and unreviewed book, Practical Speculation.  Write us at:

Readers Weigh In:

J.T.:  I once was lost but now I am found! Please do not do away with the website. I first came to the SpecList some eighteen months ago because of a Google search that through several links led me to this wonderful "Dinner Party." I am only beginning to get meals for a lifetime. I wish to be a jolly ole' fellow someday fat and happy with these meals.

The web site is the gateway to the beginning of these meals. Whomever does the filtering and places the selected posts to the SpecList is doing a fabulous job. The site is the summation of the conversations that go on. Recently claims have been made that quantity has dominated the SpecList than quality. The Quality is what ends up on the Website, the list is the means of delivering that Quality.

Unfortunately, the book Vic and Laurel wrote will be something posthumously revered just like Claret, Robert Bacon some hundred years from now when my son's son's son has it referred to him by some old geezer like me at a family reunion. It ain't broke, don't fix it. Just create more links and let it grow like the branches of that beautiful oak tree at Kew Gardens hidden in the labyrinth of the site.
 

Lindsay St. Jean, Springfield, MA: Say it ain't so!!! Your site has done more to expand my horizons and vision than any other site on the web. While it may be true that your style does
not cater to the masses looking for easy answers and absolutes, I, for one, would be at a loss if deprived of your daily ruminations.

Come on Vic. Your skin is thicker than that! The hell with the naysayers. Forge ahead.

Grandmaster Nigel Davies  <www.tigerchess.com>: As I'm at your site every few hours I thought I'd volunteer some of the requested feedback.

The predictions are great and perform much better than anything I've got on Metastock(!). This is the main reason I keep checking back and I'd check back much more if there were predictions on 6 markets. I might even find it tempting to give up my day job, though my one worry is that you will become bullish/bearish but nobody will post the update.

I guess you already know that the wide variety of subject matter and ramshackle presentation is going to put some people off and send them running to the more serious looking turtles. But then maybe that's what they deserve...


J.B.D (Phoenix, Arizona): Your Web Site is remarkably wonderful. There is more learned, fascinating and relevant information here than almost any other site in the investing domain. PLEASE
keep it.

If you are pressed for cash, maybe a $10.00 a month donation or something. Whatever it takes- please don't stop. AND- the more frequent market commentary( maybe even more specific stuff) the better!

THANKS FOR EVERYTHING


Thomas Miller: Your web site is far and away the best market site on the internet. (Dr.  Brett's is a close second). It is the most intelligent and thought provoking  site I have ever seen. No where else can you find the amazing insights found in the Spec Forum. Your forecasts can be dead on. I am lucky to have "stumbled" upon you (and Laurel), your books, and your web site. Please keep up the excellent work.

Have you thought of charging a "reasonable" subscription to this site. I bet  a lot of people would be more than willing to pay a reasonable fee to have  access to this site. You could probably make a lot of money and it would have far more legitimacy than many of the subscription sites out there. May you experience good fortune in all you endeavor to do.

        Vic replies:  That's a very beautiful message. Albeit we are poor speculators, down on our luck, we like the idea of being forced to amortize the cost of our site from past excesses of revenues receives from our writing as compared to costs. Thanks much.

Janice: Those who let you go are simply are lacking in intelligence and good taste. It would be a delightful world if more people possessed more than one functioning brain synapse. We are , unfortunately, drowning in a vast sea of mediocrity and ignorance. Keep up the good work and the brilliant commentary. There are many who appreciate it and are grateful to you.
 

Tim Melvin: Add my voice to those who say that doing away with the web site would be a mistake....It is one of the most entertaining, informative and flat out interesting sites on the web related to investing, trading. Might be interesting to add a few things...a strategy section where readers could submit tested trading ideas for review....or even a recommendation/prediction corner where I guess they would need to be vetted in some fashion, or have preselected individuals allowed to post predictions and suggestions. If anything I would look to expand, not close DailySpec. Too valuable.