A recent post “Too Small To NOT Fail” was picked up by SeekingAlpha and after reading through the feedback on that site, it really pointed out some of the underlying weaknesses and mistrust of financial blogging.

First off, I have a very thick skin and I do not get defensive. If you are familiar with Howard Roark, it’s somewhat like that. However, unlike Roark, I am going to respond to some of the criticisms in the hopes that people can focus on more positive efforts.

I am unabashed in my beliefs. Call it blunt. But as I have said in my disclaimers, I reserve the right to editorialize and give my opinion. I don’t expect everyone or anyone to like or dislike what I write. I am confident you will have the courage and intellectual capacity to decide whatever you want about my thoughts.

I challenge anyone new who reads one of my posts to do more than read one post. Read them all if you want. Go back to the beginning of HEDGEfolios and read forward. Or read the most current post and keep going backward. Long time readers obviously don’t need to do that, but I wouldn’t discourage it.

If you take the time, you should find a few things of interest.

Sometimes I do a lot of research before posting. Sometimes I just editorialize my thoughts. Despite what readers may think, I have no obligation to present facts and statistics for everything I write. I have never promised that and it would be unrealistic to do so. In fact, I have made it clear that I won’t disclose many of my analytical techniques for the signals in my database.

But on the issue of my blog posts, sometimes I reserve the right to just say what I am thinking without needing to give you evidence of the research I may have done. If you want evidence or if you have evidence contrary to my thoughts, do your own homework and come up with your own facts and statistics and make your own decisions based upon that. If my “unsubstantiated” comments spurred you to become more convinced in your own thesis, that is great. If you want to write your own blog and contest everything I say with your facts and stats, that would be fine with me.

If you choose to disregard what a writer or editorialist or satirist says because you think it lacks evidence, that is your right. But I encourage you to look back on it later if the evidence starts to appear. Regret is one of life’s greatest motivators.

For example, you might want to evaluate the totality of my work here. Go back to the beginning. Read some of my editorial comments about market risks that may have had varying degrees of “facts and statistics” to substantiate my views. Often times they are disregarded when I write them. I get criticisms about them for being too negative. Many times I am told I am an idiot and don’t know what I am talking about. I am used to that. It comes with the territory. Just be objective and figure out how many things I was wrong about that remained wrong a few weeks or months later.

One of the funny things is when I am asked how I knew something was going to happen, especially when the same post was criticized for being wrong or lacking evidence of my suppositions when I wrote it months earlier.

I do not bash. I certainly do not hype.

In fact, I rarely discuss individual stocks in my blog posts. I may reference a company or its stock, but that’s usually done to exemplify a bigger issue I want to address. For example, when I laid out my criticisms of share repurchase programs, I mentioned companies like MSFT, DELL, IBM and CFC. Click on the link in the previous sentence, scroll down to the posts following this one and read. Bashing? Not even close.

If it’s considered “bashing” to say anything negative about a company, our markets and capitalism and freedom of speech are in serious trouble. I try to be very even handed in my criticisms and let readers make their own decisions. If they listen to what I have to say and decide it is irrelevant to their portfolio or if they just decide to ignore it for whatever reason, that is their right. My hope is that people make decisions when considering both the negatives(risks) and positives(rewards).

Usually, I only discuss a stock after it is already in the news. In fact, one of the few times I can ever remember mentioning an individual stock in advance of news was Whirlpool (WHR) and even then, I did it as a means of discussing a portfolio management issue (the risks of one-of-a-kind pureplay public companies). Anyway, click on this link and then evaluate if you think I was bashing by stating what I thought was an obvious risk that was being ignored by the market. Then spend a few seconds to see what happened with WHR since then.

One of the reasons you do not see me on financial television is that I refuse to discuss individual stocks. For similar reasons, I don’t provide commentary on individual stocks on this blog. I don’t like it when people are talking their book, especially since they do not know the investing preferences and life circumstances of the reader or viewer.

There is a tremendous mistrust of stock bloggers. I understand that. Apparently, some readers of blogs think that there are nefarious reasons for writing a post and that each should be viewed with a skeptical bias. Go ahead. Be skeptical. But don’t let logic get lost in your untrusting bias. In the Too Small To NOT Fail post, I didn’t bash any specific company and yet, a reader wanted me to disclose my positions in NCC and WM. I have no idea why that would matter but here goes - no short or long position in either equity. No derivative / option position in either equity. No short or long position in any index or ETF including either equity. I am not a customer of either company. And on and on it goes. I don’t give disclosures of my positions because I don’t bash or hype any stock.

And yet, I suspect that if you feel the need to mistrust what I or any commentator says there is almost no way to satisfy you with position disclaimers since you probably think we are just lying about lying about them. This never ends and it is sad. It is not productive and it is not going to help you make money or avoid losing it.

In the end, the bashing of people accused of bashing is an absurd exercise. The reality is that my blog is not that popular. It is certainly not popular enough to influence trading in a stock or the markets in general. If I am positive or negative on a stock, who the hell cares? The only thing that should influence your opinion of a stock or markets is your own opinion, not mine.

I do not write anonymously. Yet, many people questioning my integrity or intelligence do so with anonymous comments. I always get a kick out of the hypocrisy of that one. And while we are at it, don’t you think it would be appropriate to force the disclosures of any person who defends a stock by leaving an anonymous post accusing someone of being a basher and demanding the blogger disclose his positions? Where do we draw the line?

Unabashedly, I tell you - focus on proactive ways to manage your money. If you don’t like my writing, don’t waste your time with me. If you feel that I am stupid, you questioning that will not make me smarter. If you feel the need to question my integrity, go ahead. However, none of those pursuits will be rewarding.