RANT Alert!

https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1334001600000&chddm=1316106&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:RIMM&ntsp=0

RIM is the poster child, for me, of what is wrong with putting too much into growth investing.  As far as I know, there has never been one payment to retail (post IPO) investors.  The only ones who made money for sure were market makers, investment bankers, the initial investors and, all importantly, the upper management.  And that from a company that has made profits!  Let's not forget the scores (thousands?) that didn't make any money.

Yes, if you were an astute trader you could have made money from the changing market perceptions of the future growth potential.  This is a difficult game, mostly because it is difficult to stay dispassionate when one has a position on.

And yes, there are exceptions, AAPL comes to mind, GOOG is perhaps another, but the jury is still out on them as only now has AAPL started paying dividends.  I understand the financial theory of dividends being a signal that the company has better projects to invest in and so the return for investors is higher if they reinvest all profits.  But in my view, even a token dividend would at least be an acknowledgement that there is some acknowledgement of the presence of shareholders and that this is not just an exercise in enriching the founders/upper management.

This comes to my mind mostly because of the Facebook hysteria (and now Instagram, $1 BILLION.  Really?).  Buyer beware.