Hello Lethalgal,

You talk of (coming out with definitive) “metallurgy” as possibly giving the market
what it needs to connect the dots. That’s giving the market undue respect. True, you
could say the market is the ultimate arbiter. But, as the reasoning and the plain logic
expressed on this Message Hub attests (especially, the most recent reasoning and
plain logic attests), the market, presently, without doubt, has it as wrong as can be.

As often stated, FNC has invested a relatively small percentage of its capital resources
in public ownership of other companies’ market-valued assets. We’ve all had it
repeated to us, the known monetary value of the (by far) smaller percentage of our
capital investments has been set, by the demented arithmetic of the market, as having
greater value than the whole company, which encompasses those investments plus
the remainder, which (by everybody’s conservative measure) is the best part.

So, it is the market itself that is proving to us (better than anyone else can): Using its
own market-determined hard numbers, it is demonstrably incapable of adding up a
simple column of numbers. It is not remotely reasonable for the smaller part of the
whole to have a greater market value than the whole itself (which includes that smaller
part plus another much bigger part).

In a manner of speaking, the market is blowing the whistle on itself. Not only that, it
is also turning itself in and handing over to the arresting officer its own hard evidence,
proving itself guilty of trying to put a fast one over on us. Consequently, so far as our
own reasoning, we should not be fooling ourselves by paying undue deference to the
pronouncements of the market.

Our advantage is that we know better. We need to keep every advantage we have.
Knowing better (and being sure about it) is as great as a market edge as there is. The
worst thing we can do is throw that advantage away. The fact that we know better,
and the fact that we’re sure about it, will serve us well.

What it all boils down to is: We’re ahead of the market. There are no lingering doubts
about it because the market itself has confessed to us: It has not, lately, been attending
classes, which review how to add up percentage ownership numbers.

Again, the market is wrong (and we’re sure about it). The smart thing to do is to act
accordingly. We should not be complaining about being ahead of the market. We
should not be respecting the market as though it were an all-knowing cosmic force.
Doing that is a poor use of our emotional equilibrium.