VIC for non-members

[DeepValuePlay]

Hi all,

 

I have not yet been accepted as a member to VIC (Value Investing Club).

If I remember correctly I was only able to view ideas 45 days old or older.

However, today I noticed it changed to 90 days old or older.

 

Anyone else noticed that? I'm trying to make sure I'm not going crazy here...

 

Cheers!

[Travis Wiedower]

My account is still at 45 days.

[writser]

If you are logged in: 45 days.

If you are logged out: 90 days.

 

I sometimes have the same problem: site logs me out for some reason and I see a different set of recent ideas suddenly. Are you sure that’s not what is happening?

[oddballstocks]

There is signal value to being a member if you're trying to get a job.  But I'm not sure beyond it.  I have a friend who forwards interesting ideas, mostly it's the comments that are interesting.

 

I submitted something years ago, it was rejected, it doubled as I predicted, no dice.  I talked to others, they said the same, they submitted excellent ideas, did well, nothing.  Then I started to think, it seemed like VIC was some sort of investment honeypot where Greenblatt could harvest the best ideas out there for nothing in return.

 

They show the formula for what you should fit your write-up into.  I believe if you can find a mid/large value stock that meets their parameters that's in the US you have a chance of getting in.

[EricSchleien]

I've submitted twice. One was an arb opportunity with 60% upside within a few months. Was rejected. Made 60% in a few months.

 

The other was a current idea which is already up 14% since I submitted it on no news. Idea was also rejected.

 

I get plenty of value from the delay or having a friend send me more details on something so I can read comments.

 

I've only ever generated one idea from there and it turned out to be a mediocre investment so for me, VIC has added no value for me monetarily. Maybe I'm just bad at picking VIC winners :P

[oddballstocks]

I've submitted twice. One was an arb opportunity with 60% upside within a few months. Was rejected. Made 60% in a few months.

 

The other was a current idea which is already up 14% since I submitted it on no news. Idea was also rejected.

 

I get plenty of value from the delay or having a friend send me more details on something so I can read comments.

 

I've only ever generated one idea from there and it turned out to be a mediocre investment so for me, VIC has added no value for me monetarily. Maybe I'm just bad at picking VIC winners :P

 

I knew someone on here (CoBF) who wrote a program to grind through the Investment Ideas forum and calculate returns.  Two things stuck out:

 

1) The shorter the thread the higher the returns

2) There were some people who created a lot of 1-2 post threads who killed it

 

He ran the same thing over VIC and got the exact same results.

 

And before anyone asks, no I will not share what was sent to me.  It was a few years ago, and I wasn't the one who wrote it.  Anyone with freshmen level programming experience should be able to do the same thing in a few hours.

[LC]

  Then I started to think, it seemed like VIC was some sort of investment honeypot where Greenblatt could harvest the best ideas out there for nothing in return.

 

Bingo

 

I knew someone on here (CoBF) who wrote a program to grind through the Investment Ideas forum and calculate returns.  Two things stuck out:

 

1) The shorter the thread the higher the returns

2) There were some people who created a lot of 1-2 post threads who killed it

 

Yea but there were issues with that methodology. But I think in general, the spirit of the conclusion is correct: don't ignore posts because they're not generating a big discussion, and evaluate all ideas on their merits, not number of comments.

[black-dog]

VIC's odd for me (and I'd welcome suggestions for other, similar places).

 

I went through a period where I looked at the 45d delayed ones and gave each a good bit of research, and it felt like a lot were "check out this obscure OTC and thinly-traded Norwegian short-haul shipping company!"

 

I'd finish the write-up and think "I have no idea how to evaluate any of the claims made here, or even how I'd trade this if I wanted to" -- and I'd check and see how the stock had done since being written up and it would be +/- 5c on its 1.38 value and still was only seeing a 100-1000 shares trade/day.

 

To hear that there were better ideas going in and not making it is particularly disappointing.

[eclecticvalue]

 

 

I submitted something years ago, it was rejected, it doubled as I predicted, no dice.  I talked to others, they said the same, they submitted excellent ideas, did well, nothing.  Then I started to think, it seemed like VIC was some sort of investment honeypot where Greenblatt could harvest the best ideas out there for nothing in return.

 

 

I think they only allow a certain number of users in and VIC hasn't increased membership which is a shame.

[jobyts]

 

I knew someone on here (CoBF) who wrote a program to grind through the Investment Ideas forum and calculate returns.  Two things stuck out:

 

1) The shorter the thread the higher the returns

2) There were some people who created a lot of 1-2 post threads who killed it

 

He ran the same thing over VIC and got the exact same results.

 

And before anyone asks, no I will not share what was sent to me.  It was a few years ago, and I wasn't the one who wrote it.  Anyone with freshmen level programming experience should be able to do the same thing in a few hours.

 

The threads get longer probably while or after the stock tanks. So the longer-the-thread-worse-the-performance statistics, if used to predict the future performance of the stock, may be incorrect. 

[tol1]

Quality on VIC used to be significantly better years ago. Nowadays, members just post something quickly to remain member. Many small-cap and illiquid ideas. Also, I have seen some write-ups on investments I had made before. There have been mistakes and I would suggest to do your own work. Pulling a full-blown idea from VIC for interviews is outright lazy btw (unless you just get the ticker and do your own thinking / work).

 

They used to have 250 members, so no surprise applications get rejected all the time.

[eclecticvalue]

 

I knew someone on here (CoBF) who wrote a program to grind through the Investment Ideas forum and calculate returns.  Two things stuck out:

 

1) The shorter the thread the higher the returns

2) There were some people who created a lot of 1-2 post threads who killed it

 

He ran the same thing over VIC and got the exact same results.

 

And before anyone asks, no I will not share what was sent to me.  It was a few years ago, and I wasn't the one who wrote it.  Anyone with freshmen level programming experience should be able to do the same thing in a few hours.

 

The threads get longer probably while or after the stock tanks. So the longer-the-thread-worse-the-performance statistics, if used to predict the future performance of the stock, may be incorrect.

 

Not necessarily, from my experience. Because no one really posts how much they are down on their position, or talk about the negative news. It is mostly about catalyst talk.

[Homestead31]

i think it is important to remember that just b/c an idea went up doesn't mean that your write up was good, or that you were correct in your analysis.  a lot of things have gone up over the last few years.  at the same time, there are alot of good write ups, that go up for the right reasons, that are just not what the VIC founders gravitate to.  focus on people's first ideas, and you will see that they are more along the lines of, "everyone thinks A, but actually B is true" or special situations.  everyone's first idea is reviewed by the VIC team, but once you are in, people can post crap to just maintain and they do.  i was a member for a few years, but i didn't want to post crap to just keep it live, and i had a long period w/o anything i wanted to write up.

 

it is also not true to say it doesn't cost greenblatt anything.  they give out 26 $5k checks a year, and they have an employee who i believe is full time working on maintaining the site.