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Thanks Wren. He psychologically manipulates us. For instance, recently on the hotline he was pushing Hilton at 26, and he said that the reason why the stock had come down was because a mutual fund manager had foolishly dumped shares (ignoring the best interests of his shareholders according to Dessauer), but now that that selling was over with, the cloud was lifted, and there would be little downward pressure on the stock from that point on. Period. Dessauer practically gave an assurance that the stock was not going to go any lower, or much lower. (it sure sounded like that to me, anybody else hear it?) As of yesterday, Hilton was 17 something. It wasn't right for him to do that, to assure people that there was little or no risk in buying that stock at that price. But he went beyond that. He started saying that he didn't want to get tearful letters a year from now from people agonizing because they missed the boat to buy Hilton at a bargain price, that it hurts him to read such letters, that he doesn't want to get such letters any more, and so "please" (he loves the word "please") don't let that happen to you: buy Hilton now. I consider that emotional manipulation. Another example is Motorola. When it started falling from above 80, he urged everyone to "hold on", don't sell, and when it was around 70, he frankly stated, "don't worry, it's not going back to 50." Period. End of sentence. How could he promise us that? Some assurance it turned out to be; Motorola was recently in the 30s. The point is that no investment advisor should be so omniscient as to give his word that a certain price is going to hold, or to state that he knows why a certain price movement occurred and that this knowedge enables him to give assurances about future price action, or to be so cocky as to declare that he knows where the floor is underneath a stock. This isn't just about his being wrong, mistaken, miscalculating and incompetent (which he has been). It is about his being grandiose, self-aggrandizing, self-deluded, and quixotic. The man has got an ego, and it makes him truly dangerous. |
