 Don't Delay & Let Profits Slip Away |
Securities Analyst "I know best how you should invest!" |
this ad paid for by Frymervest LTD
|
|
 |
Out of the Mud Grows the Lotus:
Murry Frymer's New Career
By
MURRY FRYMER
of TheColumnists.com
I HAVE DECIDED to become a securities analyst. I was looking for a second career and this one was just out there asking for me.
I told my wife about my decision and she said something dumb like "You don't know anything about the stock market!"
"Not true," I said. "I have had lots of losses this year which shows that I know a lot."
I don't think she understood that, but then she is a simple woman who never lost a dime in the market, leaving that to me, and so she goes about her day in mundane things. She could never make a securities analyst.
I, on the other hand, have all the makings. For example, I was reading about one analyst at Merrill Lynch who was named analyst of the year last year. In the tech sector (also known at the Titanic sector), his picks were down 75 to 85 percent. That, indeed, is impressive. You have to go back to the Depression of 1929 to find performance like that.
Anyway, this guy, who I am sure influences millions of people to lose millions of dollars, says he got some things wrong last year. Not that he has stopped picking stocks. He makes a hefty living at it.
I make hardly any living at all, except buying this guy's picks, which has done wonders for my portfolio. It has eradicated it.
SO, I FIGURE, with any study at all, I, too, can pick stocks that lose 75 to 85 per cent. I might even find a few that lose 95 per cent. I think I bought some of those, too.
I have been a follower of analysts and I know how it is done. First come the recommendations. You do that by opening your newspaper and seeing which stocks are up. It helps if they have been doing well for a while. Then you will note a trend. Up!
Recommend those stocks. Right away you are admired for being on top of a trend. Then go on vacation. When you return you may find that the trend has shifted, as it did on so many stocks about a year ago. The stock you picked before you left may now have lost 75 per cent of its value. Now it is time to recommend again. Recommend that all those people who followed your first recommendation SELL the stock. You will again be on top of a trend. All those people will have lost most everything but you will be stockpicker of the year for recognizing trends.
And then, of course, look through the paper and find another stock with an upward trend and recommend again. You can do this for years and wind up living in Greenwich, Conn. and sending your kids to the finest private schools.
Of course, if by chance, one of your stock picks actually STAYS up for a while, find the percentage of up and take out a big ad in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal heralding your brilliance. All those folks willing to buy your losers will be blown away. They will assume that they were merely unlucky, that you can pick a winner now and then and they will second-mortgage their homes and invest again. If by chance, and the chances have been very good lately, that the new winner turns into a loser, you have all sorts of easy explanations that the public has always bought and will no doubt buy again.
Say something like, "public confidence has turned" and that profit has somehow become an important ingredient in which stocks are now considered valuable. Just make sure that you never imply that any analyst is supposed to know in advance when public confidence will turn.
Since you really don't have to know ANYTHING in advance, this is a good career choice for me. You sit around all day, or half a day, and guess. If you guess right, you take out a full page ad telling the world. If you guess wrong, you talk about public confidence. It's a snap.
ANOTHR JOB I think I would like, except I am overqualified, is chairman of the Federal Reserve, or the FOMC, whatever that is. Alan Greenspan has had that job for a while now. It's really a great job. Not only is the money good, but you get to testify in front of Congress every three days and they are all reverential towards you, as opposed to how they are when they take testimony from anyone who worked for Bill (Booh!) Clinton.
Mr. Greenspan is the guy who a year ago was very upset because of all the "irrational exuberance" in the market. At that time, the market was moving very high very fast and unemployment was disappearing and, well, you can see that it was time to act. So he raised interest rates six times. That did it, or helped do it. Poof went the exuberance. Today as the market hits low after low, Mr. Greenspan is mulling things over. He thinks things may get worse. That sort of implies a depressive personality, I think, which, thanks to Mr. Greenspan, I now have.
I am sure Mr. Greenspan does not own any stocks himself. If he did he would not find the days when they are high to be irrational. He might, in fact, find them likeable. But Mr. Greenspan owns only tulip bulbs, so he is well off. And he gets so much vanity time in front of the congressmen!
It really isn't very hard to make it in this securities world. The key thing is: recommend, don't buy! Recommend and recommend and recommend. Remember, if by some small weird chance you are ever right, take out the big ads. Yes, you and I, too, can be analysts of the year!
© 2001 by Murry Frymer. The Frymer cartoon is © 2000 by Jim Hummel. The Lincoln likeness is from IMSI's Master/Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
You can comment on this column or contact Murry Frymer with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
| Home | About Us | Archives | Talkback | Shopping Mall |