$750,000 or half a life[or?]?

A story similar to that of the Mexican fisherman...? From Jeff Henshaw:

The scene: A diner full with the breakfast crowd. There are two stools left at the counter as a guy in a business suit, carrying the Wall Street Journal, and a biker wearing weathered denim and leather sit down elbow-to-elbow and order up coffee and the breakfast special. The guy in the suit looks up from his newspaper and sees the Harley-Davidson patch on the other guy’s vest.

Suit: Excuse me, do you own a Harley?

Biker: Yeah, Shovelhead.

Suit, wondering if the biker is calling him “Shovelhead”: Did you see the quarter they just announced? Amazing.

Biker, wondering if the U.S. mint is issuing a Harley commemorative quarter to go along with the state quarters, shakes his head.

Suit: Second-quarter earnings up 22 percent over last year. Revenue at $1.13 billion. Billion! That’s a lot of motorcycles to sell in three months. That’s 18 consecutive years of increased earnings and a new all-time high stock price yesterday. Our leisure products industry analyst has been saying for five years that the Harley bubble was going to burst, and the stock just keeps going up. You have a Harley, so tell me what it’s all about.

Biker: If I have to explain… (looks at the guy’s suit) Yeah, guess there’s a lot to explain.

Suit: I’ll say. The company was left for dead 20 years ago. Now it’s number 355 on the Fortune 500 list. But they say the customer base is aging. Do you have a new bike?

Biker: No, I’m old school. My Low Rider is a 1981.

Suit: (Digs a folder out of his briefcase.) How much did you pay for it?

Biker: I bought it from Skeeter on New Years Day, 1987. He hit a patch of ice and messed up his knee and his ol’ lady told him to get rid of it. It just had a few scratches. I gave him $4,000 for it.

Suit: Hmmm, $4,000 on January 1, 1987. (Examines a chart, punches some numbers into his calculator.) Do you know if you’d put that $4,000 in Harley stock on that date, and reinvested all your dividends, you’d now have about $750,000?

Biker: Really? Well Skeeter offered me $5,000 for it just the other day, now that his ol’ lady finally left him. And I’ve ridden it 80,000 miles since I bought it from him. What other bike is going to go up in value like that?

Suit: Well, that’s only a 25 percent return. And it doesn’t account for maintenance expenses. But it is better than the hit I took when I traded in my Mercedes. Still, wouldn’t you rather have three quarters of a million dollars? I mean, if I offered you $750,000 for your old, worn-out bike, wouldn’t you jump at it? You could go out now and buy a whole fleet of Harleys if you’d bought stock in 1987 instead of that bike.

Biker: (staring off into space, idly stroking his beard): Well, yeah, I guess if you gave me $750,000, I’d hand over the pink slip to the Low Rider in a hurry. But that’s not really the deal you’re talking about, is it? I’d have to give up everywhere I rode her over the last 17 and a half years. If I’d bought stock in ‘87, I wouldn’t have taken that ride over Lolo Pass when I almost got caught in a snowstorm in May. I would have missed eight Daytona Bike Weeks and three rides to Sturgis. I wouldn’t have seen Scott Parker come out of retirement and win the Springfield Mile. Don’t even want to think about all the friends I wouldn’t have got to know.

Suit: Hmm, I never thought of it that way.

Biker: Aw, I can’t tell you why the stock does this or that. That’s something you’ll have to figure out.

Suit: (Picking up his check and the biker’s) Actually, I think you just explained more than our analyst has in a year. Let me buy your breakfast and I’ll consider it a bargain. (walks out)

Biker to self: Well, if I have to explain… maybe I did.

Questions? Differences?
Again, I believe, both are wrong. This time by their irrationality rather than their desired means and ends.
What is there to say he would have invested in HOG?
Is this a little [healthy] synthetic happiness?
I like this:

Well, yeah, I guess if you gave me $750,000, I’d hand over the pink slip to the Low Rider in a hurry. But that’s not really the deal you’re talking about, is it?

One's reasoning capacity is greatly distorted when looking at 'what could have been':

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
- John Greenleaf Whittier

I think the story is more potent as a reminder of the limitations of an analyst, especially in judging extrinsic value.