The telling tale of two portfolios

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Page 1 of 7 July 2013 © Copyright StockTakers Limited, All Rights Reserved. Copying Prohibited.
The author does not provide investment advice. In order to use reproduce or convey the material herein,
in any way, written agreement must be obtained from the author or its agent Architypes Inc.
StockTakers Limited is an Alberta corporation providing information on “likeables” equities.
StockTakers Limited encourages your seeking tax law advisor for capital gains tax dispositions.
Man Bites Man! The Telling Tale of Two Portfolios.
These many months “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.”
Our story is not about two port cities London and Paris in perilous times, a classic for all time. It
is about ethics and altruism raising the corporate fictitious person as a social necessity for
society’s benefit. Our classic is about two portfolios where the ‘Goats’ feed on investors, and the
‘Grail’ replenishes investors with a return above inflation hopefully much more than inflation.
Usually, disclaimers are at the bottom in small print. Instead of that we are starting this nearer
the front. It is in large print just as the rest appears, because we can. Plus we have reasons for
that as we can account, further below, which are very interesting.
Disclaimer
Investing in the bond and stock markets is a highly regulated and litigious industry because there
remains only one effective rule of law can provide and that is caveat emptor or “buyer beware”.
This is the context of the stock market, as its portfolio, where the ‘Goats’ graze wallets.
To that we can add one rule, our one rule we wish to abide, buy and hold when the Stock Price is
above the Risk Price, SP>SF as that rule has proven its merit. That is the unique feature of our
portfolio and consequent to which we obtain results as we do, it is the ‘Grail’ investors’ need.
Nothing that we say should be construed by any person as advice or a recommendation to buy,
sell, hold or avoid the common stock or bonds of any public company at any time for any
purpose or reason as they may have in their conviction. That is the law and we fully support and
respect that law and regulation in every jurisdiction without exception and without qualification
to the best of our knowledge and ability. We depend on the law working reasonably well that
balance sheets are reasonably fair reports.
We can only tell you what we do, why we do it or have done it and the results we obtain from
our exercising just that one rule, SP>SF, speaks for itself. We do not presume to know anything
at all about the future or the future of stock prices or earnings projections of any company nor
why they are what they are now as the result of personalities running their fictitious person.
We examine the facts their ledgers expose through balance sheets, from which we can
reasonably determine the Risk Price as our metric of its place relative to its stock price the
market determines. The Risk Price is derived from our new theory of the firm that relates a
corporation to its trading connections. There is of course a proviso that we apply. The Risk Price
should show its tendency to rise. That is how we do what we do, because we can.
"The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier."-George Bernard Shaw, Major
Barbara
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."–Conan Doyle, Scandal in Bohemia, 1891.
“Horse sense is something a horse has that prevents him from betting on people.”–Father Mathew

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The Risk Price is the fulcrum by which our portfolios are ‘leveraged’ as our selected partition of
equities offered by the stock market to investors. The behaviour of our partition of the whole
market is very consistently what investors are hopeful of obtaining, that it hold value better than
holding cash; that it at least return at the rate of inflation; and hopefully further, that it actually
return more than inflation - that it is invested as capital obtaining added value to the economy.
Adding value is a social good society seeks these fictitious persons create. Both artefact and
benefit in trade are the consequences of elevating commodities by adding value.
In Modal Geometry "theory of the firm" we make only two assumptions, clearly as follows:
1. there is a balance sheet of the firm (that the rule of law governs its information is
possibly weak assumption but at an accuracy to at least the modest degree accountants
are prepared to be responsible for), and,
2. 2. the firm will vigorously negotiate, “what it owns” (in order to stay in business “what
is owed to it” with “what it owes” and vice versa, to make the best of what it has, that is
in its trading connections).
The Modal Geometry theory of the firm has unfolded more by rigourous observation in the real
world of corporate ledgers, aided with logic, epistemology, and some powerful mathematics. We
do not rely on projections of corporate earnings or presumptions of stock price movements or
emotional assumptions with little or weak science. We can respond to what the future brings in
stock prices, relative to the Risk Price which is a metric we can reasonably assert is factual
representation of balance sheet relationship of a corporation to its trading connections, and the
worth all of them contribute to its float value as a firm.
Where Are We, And What To Do About That?
The markets have shot-up on copious quantities eased into them by a willing reserve bank
hoping for society employment to recover. This volatile bull has been “Fed” where it supplies
instead of where economy and nature demands. The era of Reaganomic racking-up “deficits do
not matter” ethos is still at large among us. Despite such manna feeding, our best and brightest
financial wizards are returning less than inflation (after their fees and expenses are accounted and
drawn out). What rationale can be put to explain that real consequence of conventions?
We do not believe the ‘reasonable’ reasons for the financial industry doing what it does, its
rationales ring hollow. As 400 years ago Sir Francis Bacon required of any point of view in
science,”Let it speak for itself.” In that regard it does speak through these results, which add-up
to less than the sum of its presumptuous speeches in prospectuses for investors. Many pensions
rely on these funds and funds of funds and the mumble-speech that accompanies them.
Why have their conventioned methods in the last 6 months returned just 3.59% (before their fee
earned deductions) when the combined benchmark indices of US markets have gained 13.50%.

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They have no science, knowledge they can account for. They have a lot of chatter, mostly in
financial Greek letters, about volatility, risk, mean-variance, and portfolio management, but even
the Greeks knew the world was round and not flat as these results show obtained by the best and
the brightest of an industry that engages a fifth of our economy. Not even shareholders will get
their due and less so the society that nurtures these fictitious persons as unsecured creditors.
It is a global crisis in economic thought that has had no answer. The managers in the trenches of
retail investing are constrained to nostrums of provably ineffective means of diversification,
systematic and non-systematic risk,
and “value” investing prescribed by
hypothetical models in a regime
where “risk” results in “surprises”
routinely pushed down to clients
undiluted after fees taken. Industry
self-regulation is exacerbated by these nostrums, even forming job descriptions for six-figured
salaries, that educators are legally constrained to authoritatively represent and pass on to students
training for certification in the industry. But, provably nostrums is all they have going forward.
You will have noticed StockTakers does things differently, for good reasons we can relate, and
in results we show. We obtain very different results doing what we reasonably know to do by
doing what we reasonably know. We
do not invest money in order to have
a greater chance of losing it for
supposed higher return as convention
requires more risk not less. We prefer
risk aversion obtaining better results
as holding stocks trading above their
Risk Price proves it does. We work
from Risk Price calculated from the
facts in ledgers of debt ratios firms
exercise from inception to demise
Our results are the consequence of
proviso we apply. Risk Price should
tend to rise while the Stock Price is also gaining. We must circumspect the gap and the Risk
Price direction. For some firms the Risk Price and Stock Price align both rising and falling
though the stock price is related to conjecture but not fact. We practice risk averse investment
behaviour, because we can. We gain when others’ conjectures push beyond fact. Our public
TaxCharityTM
NYSE 17K or BookBuilderTM
portfolios demonstrate that to the benefit of small investors paying us their attention and done as
we do, because we can be risk averse and gain, as we continually have shown. Nice caveat!

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The Nash Equilibrium & Its Stock Price
Nash Equilibrium is obtained when the Stock Price (SP) appears to more or less track the risk
Price (SF) for long periods of time which are, typically, measured in years but never forever, and
that observation allows us to extend our (B)(N)-portfolio rules to a number of stocks that we
might like to own but which we technically can’t own without breaking our prudent rules.
For example, equities that conventional methods suppose have value may linger for long periods
with the Stock Price just below the rising Risk Price we might probably like to own. One might
more significantly gain the added benefit of their rising and continuing to do so. That is a
tempting ‘might be’ though these are a part of the ‘Goats’ we shun by rule. Their prices are the
projection of expectations conventional methods rely on though mathematically proven as a
segment to be no little effective than a coin toss. These are a segment of the Contra (N) Portfolio
near to our Risk Price metric but not abiding our rule. We are cautioned by a number of
other facts as supposed by conventional investor bid modelling we have shown and discussed.
We understand, of course, these raise the Contra Portfolio (N)1
to tendency of 1.03:1 gaining,
but the general behaviour of stocks that are not (B) is not one we want to blunder into. Their
general behaviour improves the ratio of gains in the Contra Portfolio (N) as they transition form
(N) to (B), but at the cost their erratic behaviour dilutes gains tendency of the (B) side portfolio.
Because, we do not need risk but can avert risk. Practising risk aversion is our preference. The
‘Goats’ convention is convinced it wants risk for greater reward. Though, near Nash Equilibrium
with Risk Price they are not a ‘best offer’ by our measure of an acceptable Stock Price.
Our one rule is that we will only buy or hold the stock of a company if the Stock Price (SP),
plausibly tends to exceed the Risk Price (SF), our metric, which is calculated from generally
known balance sheets of these companies (and, therefore, often three to six months lag) . That
lagging information is adequate for the robust results shown using Risk Price to partition the
stock market as our portfolios show is the case. Such companies as are designated (B) by Risk
Price are distinct from all the others in the same market or domain designated (N) at that time.
We “sell” our stocks whenever there is a (B)- to (N)-transition, as “selling” on that “cue” is a
discipline that is required of our method2
. There appears no benefit to an investor continuing to
hold any equity as its Risk Price tends to flatten rather than rise or transition to decline. For long
periods the Risk Price may continue without declining though the Stock Price continues to rise
for our capital gain. When such a divergence emerges as a large gap between Stock Price above
the Risk Price defence of the capital gain is necessary for averting risk.
Effective exiting is achieved by collaring with put and call options, when favourably priced
offers enhance rate of gain, as active defence. Passive defence of gain is obtained by setting of
1
Please see, NASDAQ 100 – (B)(N) There And Done That , June 2012
2
Please see, The Wall Street Put, August 2012, for a description of the “buying” and “selling” disciplines.

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StopLoss measures. Grateful for the gain we obtain from conventional bids over shooting value,
we move on re-allocating the cash in new “likeables” emerging from Risk Price analysis.
Postscript – The Nash Theorem
The “Nash Equilibrium” is a remarkable discovery of the American mathematician John Forbes
Nash in 1950 that provides a solution to finding the outcomes of repeated cooperative (that is,
enforceable) and non-cooperative bidding processes for which the Capital Assets Pricing Model
(CAPM), developed at about the same time, is provably and obviously meaningless despite its
widespread “convenient” application to “portfolio management” risk appetite is supposed the
management of risk reduction. But that ‘mediation’ is not an appetite for risk aversion3
.
The Nash solution is that if (X) is an array of all the bid and ask prices of one company or many,
perhaps all, then a Nash Equilibrium is obtained when the market is cleared as the values (prices)
in (X) are moved from one position to another in successive bidding and asking until eventually,
there is no “economic free good” acquired by any of the parties, without a “loss” to at least one
other investor.
We can prove4
that under a reasonable set of preference relations that define observable societal
standards of risk aversion - prosaically, we do not invest our money in order to have a better
chance of losing it – that the equation Risk Price (SF) = Stock Price (SP) obtains a Nash
Equilibrium of stock prices5
. That is the boundary of our “likeability” for our ‘Grail’ portfolios.
That seems not a high hurdle but for the conventional fundamentalist “likeable stocks” have low
Price to Earnings Ratios (PEs). However we have shown that doesn’t work effectively as
measure of firms unless you “like” losing your money for reasons a conventional fundamentalist
won’t understand6
. They lose cash they deliver us as a free economic good at their loss, because
they prefer to take greater risk based on price and earnings, things they are constrained knowing
much about. It is entirely coincidental that their preference for a stock pushes prices high above
the Risk Price, a “likeable” (B) but we are inclined to take the offer as (B) transitions in decline
to (N). Further stock price rises may occur when (N) defined by Risk Price but as shown those
are inherently risk laden behaviour of market investors, not risk averse. Hence our one rule,
SP>SF and proviso to sell as (B) transitions to (N) are two boundaries of our ‘Grail’ portfolios.
The Risk Price (or the price of risk) we exactly define as “the least stock price at which a
company is likeable” (Goetze 2009) which “likeability” is defined by the behaviour of such
portfolios of stocks deemed “likeables” by their tendency not to lose but gain. The additional
requirement is that the portfolios of likeable stocks (B) and those that are not, (N),
completely separate the market, that is, a company in the market is partitioned into either (B) or
3
Please see, Adrift and Starving on the Risk Appetite, July 2012.
4
Please see, The Nash Equilibrium & Its Stock Price, October 2012
5
Please, The Price of Risk, August 2012, for more details
6
Please see, Volatility for the Delta Challenged, June 2012, and The Wrong Tools Eventually Strip All Nuts, August 2012, for
more on that.

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(N) at all times. We also have shown the partition (B) stock price rise is marked by 2:1 gains,
and, the partition (N) tends only 1.03:1 gain which is near as effective as a coin-toss, or as
random portfolio selection by chimpanzees throwing darts7
.
The Nash Theorem (1950) then says that with two other reasonable conditions on offers, there
will always be an offer that is in the set of its counteroffers and which, therefore, cannot be
improved upon. These additional requirements, without which the result is provably false, are
that one can say the set of offers is “convex” a meaning that can be generalized and becomes
quite interesting in different metrics, algebras and topologies.
The second condition is a notion of “continuity” which is obviously dependant on the topology
that we choose to put on the set of offers and how offers are actually represented in a manifold or
vector space. It is a sequence of offers that converges to an offer (X) and (Yn) is a sequence
selected from the counteroffers to the (Xn) and (Yn) converges to the offer (Y), then (Y) is in the
set of counteroffers to (X), where, the result now hands off to the extraordinary “Fixed Point
Theorem” of Shizuo Kakutani (1941).
If each player has chosen a strategy for his bid and no player can benefit by changing strategies
while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the
corresponding payoffs constitute Nash Equilibrium. Present is, in effect, the “best offer”
although there will also be, in general, many “best” offers bid and the investors are indifferent as
to which one is accepted, if not theirs. This has an interesting alignment of transaction cost and
information with difference of opinions’ market effects8
. Ours is a very different strategy.
So long as conventional fundamentals formulate market bids higher than Risk Price allows our
risk averse investment behaviour bid position from balance sheets an economic free good
rewarding our risk aversion will result. We don't want to lose our money and we're hoping for a
return above inflation. We can take responsibility for the investments that we make with Risk
Price. But one simply can't do that with the conventional “hodgepodge” of investment advice
that is provably nothing but an arcane mythology which has those same elements of awe, fear,
exclusion and disenchantment as fairy tales. QED, there remains only one effective rule of law
can provide for conventions of this industry and that is caveat emptor or “buyer beware”.
We can only tell you what we do, why we do it or have done it and the results we obtain from
our exercising just that one rule, SP>SF. We know nothing at all about the future or the future of
stock prices or expected earnings of any company or why they are what they are now as the
result of personalities running their fictitious person. We examine the facts of debt structure and
resolving those obligations as ledgers expose through balance sheet reports regulated by rule of
law. From which lagging information we can reasonably determine the Risk Price as our very
useful metric. The Risk Price is from new theory of the firm that actually works as proven.
7
Chimpanzees did better than fund managers in study by Cass School of Business, London, April 2013.
8
Please see, Momentum (Econo-speak) December 2012 for further detail

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What we do, we do because we can. Our results speak for themselves, as they are speak from
provably knowing which conventional method does not. Those who have taken our “likeables”
can be excused for thinking they are Investors “all going direct to Heaven,” while convention
ridden fund managers’ clients are “all going direct the other way.” That is the telling tale of two
portfolios, our ‘Grails’ obtaining 24.05% in six months or those ‘Goats’ of 3.59% before fees,
both obtained in a market risen 13.5% in these past six months.
Our reasons for having any equity in our portfolios are clear, concise and consistent, “likeables”
are equities shown valued by market investors, tending to continuing gain, which investors have
demonstrated determination to buy and hold the stock at prices above the price of risk.
“AlphaSmart gains, Capital Safety and Liquidity” works as we have consistently proven.
Know What You Have, and only, Have What You Know.
Our view is risk averse. Of course we require 2&20 fees for doing that. Mail us for our help.
Ernst and Hans Goetze,
Architypes Inc and StockTakers Limited
Head Office
76 Midridge Close SE
Calgary, AB
T2X 1G1
351 Chemin Boulanger
Sutton, PQ
J0E 2K0
450 538-1270

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