This gets easy enough to distill given the voluminous content of the thread. Here's my go at it:
Ernie Barsamian seems to be the kind of guy who thinks that playing the market means picking "hot" stocks, being proved right about his selections, predicting future prices, and wants to let others know it. Professional traders, who make up some of this thread, may or may not have above average egos, but they understand the markets as a different concept that has more to do with reacting to price rather than predicting it, that it's not about being right but about probabilities, more TA than fundamental analysis, and use of money management technique (position sizing, stop losses, et al) that runs apparently counter to Mr. Barsamian's MO. The spirit of Mr. Barsamian's website and posts suggest heavily the same character as those on Motley Fool, that being the world he comes from, regardless of any MBA.
The problem with using screens a la Motley Fool, and what they don't seem to understand over there, is, when one selects equities based on criteria such as, 'top 100 stocks with best Relative Performance 26 weeks > narrow down to Top 50 with EPS up 10%' and so on, one ends up with issues that have already seen their big moves. By getting in at that point, one may end up riding whatever is left, and that may be somewhat profitable if there's anything left, but it's very late getting in. That may account for the miniscule returns, and large losses, evidenced by those practicing that mode of screen selection. (See
http://backtest.org/ct/20030523.html for example. One of many weekly posts by someone who actually wrote a "backtesting" engine for the Motley Fool screens, and seemingly one of the top guys in their Mech. Investing forum. While equities have been rising as of late, this person has been losing... and losing for years. It should be noted in fairness that Mr. Barsamian's claims are favorable compared to those, even if his returns are not considered considerable. ) The other problem is that those screening methods only stop is a time exit of sorts, that is, you get out when the next screen run, which may be a month or a year later, no longer spits out the stock in question, which makes for a very risky trading procedure.
