I Had No Idea and A Follow Up

Earlier today I mentioned Viropharma (VPHM), in the context of an emailer asking about as a substitute for healthcare ETF. I hope I was clear that it was no substitute for an ETF but that I knew very little about that specific stock.

Shortly after I put the post up the stock sold off quite a bit. It may be a must own (still don't know) but it is no proxy low beta anything.

Last December I wrote about avoiding obvious and tangible risk in picking a stock and I mentioned Research In Motion (RIMM) as an example. Since then the stock is down almost 25%. I am mentioning it now because it is a great example of an important rule of thumb to keep investing simple.

Whatever it is that RIMM could have done in the last year to the upside it would have been easy to several stocks with similar potential that did not risk losing the ability to do business in the United States, holy cow.