OOPS!…

Thanks and apologies to the many readers of our semi-annual Tocqueville Trust report and of our paper on Investment Styles and Market Cycles who caught a gross arithmetical error. Both papers stated that a stock has to double in price to make up for a preceding one-third decline.

Surprisingly, until the last couple of days, we had had only a few calls about these, so that I could answer them individually. Now, however, the tide of protest is gaining momentum, and it has become necessary to answer all at once.

As many readers guessed, what I really meant to say was that you need a 100% gain to make up for a 50% loss.

What really happened, is that I was toying with several different examples to show how losses affect overall performance. In the end, somehow, the paper wound up with half of two different examples, which, of course, produced the ridiculous arithmetic many readers caught. What made things worse, is that I was so happy with my example (without re-reading it) that I cut-and-pasted it into another article. And, since no proofreaders thought I could make such a gross mistake, no one questioned it – except our readers and shareholders.

My apologies to all, and particular thanks to the thoughtful readers who brought this mistake to our attention.

François Sicart