GoPro needs to find a way to convince Facebook to buy them. That appears to be their strategy with these immersive 360 degree videos they are exclusively sharing with Facebook—court the king with some jester work.

In the meantime their stock is making new all-time lows again today. This has become commonplace for the strap-on camera maker. Their shares trade like they do not even deserve a 20 handle.

If you own this stock you basically are gambling on a buyout. In theory their 360 degree cameras are a compliment to Oculus Rift. Imagine setting a place for the spherical six-camera ring at Thanksgiving dinner. Then you can pipe in relatives from anywhere via their virtual headset. As much as I try and paint this as a cool innovation—my vision just is not clear—it sounds lame and only useful for porn.

Regardless, I own this stock as part of the GARP portfolio, and I draw a thick black X on the calendar every day as I count down to the January reshuffle. Stupid gadget stock is killing my performance.

UPDATE: As of November 10th, you can buy a Samsung Oculus Rift face mask for $99 bucks: https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/samsung-gear-vr-now-available-for-pre-orders-at-99/

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Today the stock price of GoPro, an American innovation in wearable technology, went apeshit to the upside.  This euphoric action ushered the simple class onto their soapbox to decree from their mountain of Twitter followers.  At this point in the cycle, you are either in the “camera on a stick” or “late to the party but screw it there’s blow” category.  And that is okay, this is how markets are made.

You might think I feel a sense of missing out.  After all, I sold just shy of seventy two.  This assumption couldn’t be any further from the truth.  I made a call months ago, executed it, and participated in the lion’s share of this gain.  However, I am a long term bull on GoPro and look forward to the day you decide to cast these shares into the dumpster and declare them broken.  There I will be, like a greasy banana peel, slipping you to the ground and ensuring I milk another 2% out of your liquidation.

And in the meantime, I will spot the next big thing before most.  My first GoPro was procured from an infomercial on Nickelodeon.  My ear is always to the streets bro.

Yes, there is competition flooding into the marketplace and playing catch up.  If you do not expect that, then you have never witnessed the birth of a fantastic product.  Copy cats have to chase the early market adapter while they innovate to bigger and better widgets.  Or in the case of wearables, smaller, much smaller.  I know most of you homos love your American Football.  Just imagine the boner you would obtain from watching a point-of-view helmet cam on your fantasy quarterback man crush?  It’s coming baby, will you?

As GoPro refines their product to smaller and smaller scales, the company will grow revenues to a robust, almost surreal size.  They are innovation in technology, never discount that.  As for applying valuations, good luck.  Wrapping your mind around the total addressable market (TAM) is a fool’s guess.  Don’t be a fool.

If you are chasing this sucker higher, have some risk in place. I salute your form and wish you good fortune.  Make the ‘intelligent’ short sellers walk the plank, mate.

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Camera maker GoPro (ticker: GPRO) is having a solid market premier, rewarding first day buyers with over 20% in gains.  Now of course, this is drawing the attention of media jack asses, none of which suggested buying the company yesterday.  A few say it is a buy here, a few are already calling it ‘frothy’.  These people are not on the television to help you in any way.  They do not want to converse with you and learn and grow, NO.  They want to entertain you with their jokes and looks.

Here at the Raul blog we live under a cloak of sorts, skating by on lower than average view counts and continually observing, studying, and hypothesizing the market.  This is science, live, with a touch of style.  As any scientist will tell you, failure is just as informative as success, if you allow it.

GoPro will go higher, lower, nowhere for a while based on nothing.  I could see here and I might, to lock in the quick gains.  But then I will be tasked with creeper stalking GoPro to ensure I do not miss the next move, praying for a dip and sacrificing Amish hormone free range chickens to the gods for the gift of a dip.  It is a ton of work and in this heat, it can be downright exhausting.  Or I can just take it off my screens and call it an investment, just like my TWTR, LO, and until Fly says otherwise XON.

Do not read too far into the GoPro move.  Yes this is a great company and one of the finest tangible products introduced to my generation, right up there with the iPhone, the Nest, Tesla Model X, e-cigarettes, and Coors light silver bullet power can/bottles.  But, this chart is still in its infancy and may not take shape for a few quarters.  Are you prepared to take a 2-3 quarter drawdown?

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