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To love the Facebook hate

Cody Willard

Cody Willard

— 2 min read

A few years ago I developed the Cody’s Inbox Hate-O-Meter which turned out to be an excellent contrarian indicator. One of the classic examples of its efficacy was back when I bought Apple common and calls at $7 a share when they had $8 per share in net cash back in March 2004 and my inbox was full of mocking emails saying things like “Why, is the next Apple Newton finally going to hit?” as it was wildly unpopular to buy Apple back in 2004 as evidenced by the fact it was trading for less than the amount of cash it had on the balance sheet at the time. Apple now has more than $100 per share in net cash by the way.Anyway, my Cody Inbox Hate-O-Meter went off the deep end with my declaration that I’m now buying Facebook at $26 a share. I’d say about 90% of my feedback was negative/dismissive or outright angry from my recent “I’m the only idiot buying Facebook right now” columns. See some of the negativity below:

@codywillard Facebook is not “the operating system for the cloud/app/mobile revolution”. It’s the Wordperfect.



bwaaaaahahaha! RT“@MarketWatch: You should buy shares of Facebook. @codywillard explains: http://on.mktw.net/LryEf6 $FB”#tcot



@MarketWatch @codywillard The $FB shorts still have the advantage, but thanks for the update. Still holding for $10 or not at all.



Kobe Wild

“@StockTwits: Facebook Is Top Short-Seller Target Among Large Stocks http://stks.co/486W $FB”@codywillard

And my personal favorite:

Homer Plate ‏@homerplate
@codywillard facebook is opperating system for app-mobile? Ur an idiot? I should call SEC..ever heard of front running..jesus

And a big-time value mutual fund manager friend of mine wrote me:

“I thought I would buy it at $15. But I stick with my contention here, posted b4 the ipo bust:

“biggest internet ipo ever?? bah humbug. sit on my facebook! stock will be no higher than opening price in 10 years.”

—-Good luck with the trade, I wouldn’t pay $50 billion for FB, not even close. You need massive revenue growth to justify current valuations imho….But I am a deep value guy….lol”

Negativity alone isn’t enough to make a stock go up. But I do think there’s a clear contrarian play of being long Facebook now and I sure do think the Cody Inbox Hate-O-Meter drives that point home very well.

I’ve made FB one of my top five biggest positions already and I’ll be buying more FB on any future near-term weakness.

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