Ron, here is the problem. Why is the second or third question out of Bill Griffeth's mouth always "Do you see the market going up or down?" As Peter Lynch says, "Don't ask." It's a ridiculous question and shouldn't be asked. Burton Malkiel's academic work completely debunks market timing and it is idiotic for CNBC to keep consciously or unconsciously promoting the guru de jour. (I'm eagerly awaiting the fall of Abbey Cohen.) It's like the science channel doing a serious interview with a professor of phrenology.
Not that most FA's beat the market either, but at least a few do. But how come Peter Lynch is never on?
A few years ago a Senator in Arizona introduced a bill that required all psychiatrists in the courtroom to wear a conical hat with planets and half moons and stars and wave a wand in a circular manner while testifying. I think CNBC's policy toward market timers ought to be the same. The fact that they wear suits doesn't make them respectable.
Acompora is now neck and neck with William Ginsburg for the 1998 Media Idiot award.
I commend CNBC for calling him out, but I think he out to be ridiculed out of a job. I understand that promotion of a buy and hold investment strategy would not be the best thing for CNBC's ratings, but I would love to see these timing quacks off the air and a little more information in depth about a company's PE ratios, same store sales, overseas expansion plans instead of the dumb buy-sell-hold formulas by know-nothing FAs and DOW prediction from TA's who obviously haven't studied stocks in depth and just parrot something obvious they heard at the office i.e. "Cisco has emerged as the leader in networking, blah, blah".
Anyway, good journalism is asking the right questions and the direction of the DOW is a dumb one. If this makes me venomous then I'll spit my venom in the viper pit with luminaries such as Lynch and Buffett.
BTW, you can check prior postings, I've always been pro-Insana. |
