Pblc Srvnt Demands Accurate Product Labeling!
Oh to be a Wall Street Analyst! What severe pressures they must, without reasonable doubt, be under. To estimate the value of a stock, to publically proclaim that price, to issue a recommendation to purchase that stock with an expectation that "12 to 18 months" hence the stock will have achieved that predicted price; this is a risky proposition and practice. But, it is a position that must be taken and is taken daily by so many whose job descriptions require this very act. And in doing so, these analyst's, who work from a limited knowledge--everyone's knowledge is limited--achieve a position(notice I didn't say "take a position"); there is a confidence--expressed if not actual--in doing such. And then, when reality tramples projections in a speculative mania.... Oh, to be an analyst....
"Well, let's see. I gave the target price as $45. The stock is now at $100...$114...$125...$139!!! Sh*t. What the hell should I do? I've seen this. I know what's going to happen. Are there people who actually bought this on my recommendation?....Oh, God. If there aren't, then I am simply useless. I have no meaning in life. Nobody is listening. If there are people who've listened, I have to do something...I have to..."
But they don't. They sit on their hands and forget that those people that look to their recommendations as the "Expert's Opinion" don't speak WallSpeak; don't understand the significance of "Hold." Or, maybe the analysts do remember that Grandma Noclue hasn't any perception of the significance of "Downgrade to Moderate Buy," "Shortsqeeze," "P/E, "P/S." etc. etc. Maybe the internal pressures applied by the management in the analysts' firms overwhelm them. Maybe their hands are tied to the a*s. Maybe they really don't make recommendations; they simply, to the best of their ability, attempt to discern what the management would like them to decide, and thus pronounce that.
Oh! To be a Wall Street analyst. Oh! To be an honest man(or woman). Oh! To appear inconsistent by changing recommendations quickly. Ralph Waldo Emerson had a few things to say about integrity and consistency that have served well many who became famous--rather than infamous--over the past few decades, things "analysts," men and women of conscience and integrity might find appealing at a more moral level:
"Whoso would be a man[or woman] must be a nonconformist... A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.... With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tommorow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today. --Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.-- Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
But perhaps the analysts see themselves as inconsequential, they missed the boat, their lives have no meaning, they are not contributing to science or humanity or the betterment of the world. In fact, their recommendations have become the boy's cry of "Wolf!"--as the conviction with which they are spoken renders them. There is no conviction or perceptable confidence or hint of justifiable truth to so many of their utterences, so the crowd tunes them out as are tuned out most redundant noises and events of everyday living such as planes near the flight path, the chatter of children at a distance, the sound or smell of the sea for those who live by it. The analysts have become redundant noise.
And, in effect, the only people listening are those who hear it for the first time; Grandma Noclue. Analyst thinks to self(let's hope):"My God, what do I do now? I recommeded $45. It's...it's $139?!!"
It's a moral question for me. You take a stand. But, Oh! To be an analyst on Wall Street. What pressures do they suffer under; job security on the left shoulder, moral conviction(at least awareness let us hope) on the right. It's a compromise. Famous or Infamous is the question? Ralph Waldo has much more to say on living with oneself, about the pain of being a follower and not a leader. Here is a little of what he says. It seems extraordinarily applicable and relevant for those who are in the fray on Wall Street:
"In every work of genious we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when thewhole cry of the voices is on the other side. Else tomorrow a stranger[another analyst] will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another..."
Oh. To be an analyst on Wall Street. To be infamous or famous? To be a man/woman or a follower? To succumb to pressure or abide by conscience? I wouldn't want the job. I admire greatly those who speak their convictions loudly, clearly, with no room for misinterpretation. They are protecting our Grandparents who have fought world wars, lost loved ones, been mutilated and psychologically damned for their participation so that we could... We could what? Lack integrity?
I believe if Ralph Waldo Emerson were here today, he would see opportunity on Wall Street. Not the opportunity to profit financially--not that he wouldn't see that. But an extraordinary opportunity for some not so significant people to achieve a greatness that otherwise would have escaped them in their lives. The chance to set the boat atilt, the chance to flush the fowl from the brook, the chance to "Speak what you think now in hard words and tommorow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today"
It's a chaotic world. And it requires an unusual store of integrity and a willingness to be misunderstood to abide by one's conscience. But, in retrospect, there will be respect--if not from anyone else--then from oneself. And that is all that matters in the end; that we did what we thought was right and good.
Lee
P.S. The opposite of "BUY" is "SELL." |
