MARK TO MARKET: One Hundred Percent Margin Of Error
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13:30 ET
=DJ MARK TO MARKET: One Hundred Percent Margin Of Error
28 Feb 13:30
By Jim Murphy
A Dow Jones Newswires Column
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Is it worthwhile taking a poll and trumpeting the
results if you know - and everyone else knows - what the results will be in
advance and if a huge chunk of those polled don't know what they're talking
about?
The folks at Gallup just got through polling 9,924 people in nine
predominantly Muslim countries. The percentage of those polled who said they
believed no Arabs were involved in the attacks of 9/11 ranged from 43% in
Turkey to 89% in Kuwait.
Gallup said the margin of error for the Kuwait poll was plus or minus four
percentage points, when obviously the margin is plus 89 percentage points.
Pollees who don't know what they're talking about are legion in non-Muslim
countries, too. For example, a just-released ABC News poll of 1,029 adults
found that six of 10 of those responding said they would try to fight
terrorists attempting to take over an airplane.
Without going into chapter and verse, because I'm not proud of it, I have
found in my life - many times in Vietnam and several more times when I came
home - that I am not the hero in real life that I am in my mind.
Most of us realize the same thing, regardless of what we may tell a pollster.
That is why, for example, we honor and greatly admire Todd Beamer, who led the
passenger revolt against the terrorists on doomed United Airline Flight 93 with
the words that now belong only to him, "Let's roll."
God Forbid
Have you ever said to yourself, "If only I had high-speed broadband Internet,
my life would be complete."
I didn't think so. My life isn't that barren either.
But on the remote chance you believe that high-speed broadband Internet is
the only thing that stands between you and bliss, you would surely love to wake
up Friday morning in Indianapolis.
That's because, as the press release informs us:"America Online, the world's
leading interactive services company, today (Thursday) announced the launch of
its AOL High Speed Broadband service over the Time Warner Cable system in
Indianapolis ...
"The AOL High Speed Broadband service provides a new level of convenience and
ease-of-use that empowers consumers to make the online medium an even more
central part of their daily lives."
Should an online medium ever become a central part of my daily life, I am
using this columnar medium to beg my wife Ruthie to sign me into Happy Acres.
Zounds!
Pericom Semiconductor Corp. (Nasdaq:PSEM) just came out with a new family of
logic circuits.
What can these new babies - also know as "dual supply logic devices" - do?
They can, the press release says, "translate voltage levels bidirectionally
implementing the classic 16-bit 16245 transceiver function for the
PI74AVC164245A, and 24-Bit HSTL to LVTTL for the PI74HSTL1212. Furthermore, the
PI74AVC164245A device and PI74AVC164245LA are quite versatile; they can
translate between such interface standards as SSTL, HSTL, and LVTTL."
It seems to me that Pericom could have saved lots of money on press releases
if it had e-mailed the announcement to the one person on the planet who could
understand it.
It reminds me of the sound made in the Spiderman comic when Spidey releases
the highly compressed web strapped to his wrist, which is "FWIP!"
"I'm sorry he can't come to the phone now. He using his transponding ISTLE to
interface with a bidirectional SISTLE."
Buried
A press release on corporate results that's six-feet tall or more when
printed out on 8 1/2-by-11-inch sheets should, in and of itself, send a warning
signal to the reader.
EchoStar Communications (Nasdaq:DISH) released a six-footer this morning
detailing fourth quarter and full-year 2001 results.
The first paragraph contained news of a 43% increase in revenues in the
quarter ended Dec. 31. The second paragraph began, "Pre-marketing cashflow grew
to $432 million during the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2001, a 43% increase compared
to $303 million during the same period in 2000."
It's a coincidence surely that quarterly revenues rose by the same
percentage as "pre-marketing cashflow." I don't know what that is - I, like
Enron ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling, not being an accountant.
Anyhow, the reader must leave the text and trek to the tables of this
six-footer to learn that EchoStar sustained a fourth quarter net loss per basic
and diluted share of 9 cents. The irony is that in the fourth quarter a year
earlier, EchoStar reported a net loss per basic and diluted share of 39 cents
a share.
So the press could have opened in a positive and more-to-the-point manner,
"EchoStar Communications said its net loss per share narrowed sharply in the
fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2001 ..."
(Jim Murphy can be reached at (201) 938-2145 or Jim.Murphy@DowJones.Com)
(END) DOW JONES NEWS 02-28-02
01:30 PM |
