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To: L. Adam Latham who wrote (170732)	9/6/2002 3:25:22 PM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Respond to of 186894

>> People who do not know how to interpret financial >> statements should be investing in mutual funds, not >> individual stocks. > > That may be true (debatable), but the Government is on a > roll right now to look after the little, individual > investor, not the institutions. So the rules that > Government agencies and Congress put in place will be > geared towards individuals with little financial > experience. There's no rule in the world that will give people who don't use all the information at their disposal an advantage over the people who do. Like it or not, those who can read, analyse and understand financial statements, above and beyond the "final number" reported in the headlines will always have the advantage in the end. The congress can make whatever rules they want about forcing companies to use one accounting methodology over another (and in truth, everybody's always been required to report GAAP results, even if they didn't trumpet them at the top of the headlines), but they can't force smart people to make use of those numbers in their investment decisions, and they can't create a rule that will prevent other people from blindly reacting to whatever number makes the headlines. That's the way it goes. There will never be one single number that can consistently tell the story of a company's business. A person who bases his decisons based on a single number every quarter is a person whose money I will continue to take, year in and year out. They'd do better giving their money to somebody who has a clue. mg