I was surprised to come home today and see such a nice move on the part of HDIE. Also, ORCL. Looks like a bunch of techs did nicely. I don't follow the techs, per se, but things look okay with the ones I hold, anyway. I am sure this must be the typical run up that begins as we hold our breath for earnings...................
As for polls....depends on the size of the audience you want to make a comment on. For a snapshot of Detroit, 500 is fine, since it encapsulates the Detroit area in a fairly concise manner.
For CNN, it's abysmal (though, you are correct, standard). The margin of error SHOULD be larger, but statistics being what they are, the rules prevent it. If Nielsen ratings were taken on a poll of 500 people, you would get 0.0 ratings on all but about 4 or 5 networks. That should give some indication of the reality of poll taking. Especially when you consider that Neilsen (which I think has 6,000 some households) has a margin of error of 3%, and IS STILL notoriously wrong.
I, for one, never care for polls. I learned too much about them in my Statistics and Economics classes to find them useful or meaningful in any way. My further experience, in TV, with them totally turned me off. It is the single most abused tool available. |
