To All, Barron's Review. A very poor issue with just a few highlights.
1. Abelson quotes such kooks as Warren "Margaritaville" Buffett <g> and Andy Smithers (of The Smithers Brothers. You know, "Mom liked you best.") about some of the scam accounting that has inflated eps. The best part of the issue is when Smithers claims that the phony accounting for employee stock options inflated eps by 56% in 1997 and 50% in 1998. I must have lost my new pair of dimes. That sounds like a lot to me. <g> Nothing new to readers of this thread, but still nice to see in print given the circulation of the rag.
2. I am happy to see that investors have finally realized they have been scammed by The Dogs of the Dow. Every few years another of these brain dead formula cons comes along and folks almost always fall for them. The popularity of such critters is due to extrapolation of past trends, so popular with technicians and academics. They are linear thinkers in a five dimensional rhumatoid quadraphonic market. How is that for mangling terms like Prof. Magnus Magnusson? <vbg>
3. A small note on tech cos. having to reverse one-time writeoffs so they can't flim flam eps. Too little, but a nice start for the SEC.
4. John Liscio, often brilliant and interesting, has a mundane piece about no inflation.
5. A goof from Oppenheimer Funds talks about a 30,000 Dow in 2010. This guy has underperformed the world forever, so I guess he knows what he is talking about. I have friends at OPCO and I will probably hear about this. Yet another co. I can never work for if I ever have a bad year. I'm sure happy I'm so damned good. <g>
6. Market Watch was all bullish and stupid. My favorite was something called Positive Patterns which recommended buying Compaq because it has been down so long. Whoops! Of course, they had no idea what Compaq's business looked like. What does that have to do with investing? <g>
7. The Mailbag was the worst in a long time. It has been too long since Wayne Crimi and I have sent in pithy comments that pith people off. <g>
8. The Internut craze is not only a bubble, its doom has just been carved in stone. Sometime this year there will be an internut fund CEF IPO. Notable, because the only time you bring and equity CEF public is when its sector is manic. This is like a stake to the heart.
9. An interview with Jim Gipson, a mediocre fund manager from San Diego. Jim's top four holdings include Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What a maroon! They also include DeBeer's. What a genius! <g>
10. In The Trader, Andy Bary mentions the warning from Compaq and talks about this trend may have something to do with the insiders bailing at Dell. Love it! |
