Paul, absolutely. Kumar is another one of those guys you just want to mark off on the map as a "free-fire zone".
Have your barf-bag handy for this one. Thestreet.com, a publication whose collective IQ while normally in the 140-150 range drops precipitously to about 70-75 in the case of its hoaky "The Ax" column, had a piece on him that is the epitomy of the "bend over and spread 'em" style of candy-ass financial journalism:
archive.thestreet.com
He's praised for a 3Q estimate made back in June, and yet no mention is made of his 2Q tinkering?
According to Kumar: "The herd instinct is in place so no one can claim that they were wrong," he explains.
Interesting, but wasn't "Mr. Maverick's" 2Q estimate .70 in June, and then when Rob "Rambus or Bust" Chaplinksy started the INTC freak-out that sent it into the mid-60's wasn't Kumar part of the herd? If memory serves me correct, his numbers drifted along with the herd from .70 to .62, didn't they? And then he raised them back up to .70 the day before INTC reported?
So basically, he (like Rob Chaplinsky, also ex-Intel) cuts his numbers, helps drive the stock on a meaningless run to 65, and then on the eve of their report - back up to .70?
C'mon. That's not right out of "Analyst Psy Ops 101" (a free public course taught by Professor Thomas P. Kurlak at the market's expense)?
Another great one:
"My style is to look for an incremental piece of evidence that's different than the norm."
Oh, uh, you mean like running with a rumor that IBM's going to invest in AMD? Would that be "incremental" or "evidence" or perhaps neither?
As Kumar's views become more widely disseminated -- thanks to his mass emails to clients and the media -- many company CEOs are starting to take note...
Hmmm...so is it reasonable to assume that's part of the reason a guy who started at Piper back in March suddenly seems to be showing up so much in the financial press as a font of wisdom for INTC and AMD? "Mass e-mails" to the media? Is that why a guy who's been working at a Minneapolis-based firm for...let's see...March, April, May, June, July, August, September...7 months suddenly seems to be so ubiquitous?
"Mass e-mails" to the media?
And it's working!
Not only does TSC put him into consideration for "the Ax" (a dubious title, considering that TSC is also perpetrating the myth that Dan Niles is the "Ax" on CPQ). Just yesterday TSC not only ran, but blew-up into a side-bar this little Kumar bon mot on AMD:
"This is the last stock you'd want to own."
So, obviously the day after pronouning that "this is the last stock you'd want to own", and faced with an upside surprise, can there be any reasonable doubt that it was SOLELY the ruthless pursuit of truth driving the "no guts, no glory" postulation on the 1% yields?
Do I even need to mention that Kumar's hypothesis was somehow magically conveyed to Reuters?
And in reaction to GTW's CEO sitting in on a Piper call:
"Now it looks as if [Waitt] wants to appease me," says Kumar.
Of course he does, Ashok. Of course he does. In fact he's SO frightened of you that he moved his corporate HQ to San Diego just so he could be further away from you. No, really!
Not that such humble, self-effacing, self-pronouncements by Kumar are anything new, since after all, it was Kumar who once described his place in the pecking order of INTC analysts as follows:
"I don't want to blow the trumpet, but if you look at the data points on Intel, it either comes out of Rob [Chaplinsky] at Hambrecht & Quist, or myself."
The Norman Mailor of tech analysts? Is it fair to call the collected press-clippings of Ashok Kumar Advertisements For Myself?
No, absolutely not.
That's not fair to Mailor <g>
Good trading,
Tom |
