Which is what the Columnist is pointing out. Let’s call it the Bing Bang theory.

I’ve never worried about the “Separation of Church and State” issues with the “In God We Trust” because of the above saying. After all, Jesus went after the moneychangers only in the temple, not in the government.

SOMEONE GETS IT!!!!!!!!

I’ve never understood the mentality of slating a company for making good profits under difficult market conditions (even though the profit may not match up to the previous year). Marks and Spencer anyone?

Hint, Hint for your next rant.

The on-line investment book store contains 2,142 books on “INTRODUCTION TO INVESTING”.

The S.E.C. spells out the following types of “INVESTMENT FRAUD”: 1. Biased investment advice. 2. Unfounded investment advice. 3. contradictory investment advice. 4. Continuing risk. 5. conflict of interest. 6. Churning. 7. over concentration. 8. unsuitability. 9. Misrepresentation/Omission.

S.E.C. guidelines for stockbrokers?

1. Fair dealing. 2.Best execution. 3. Customer confirmation rule. 4.Disclosure of credit terms. 5. Short sales. 6. Trading during an offering. 7. inside trading.

Investing is simple. Just stick to the few guidelines mentioned here and enjoy the grandiose thoughts of “RETIREMENT”.

Actually, that’s not exactly true. Some companies will tell you who you can and can’t associate with. They will monitor your public communications, even if done on your own time. They do tell people that they must behave in certain ways, even when not at work (go to gym, lose weight, stop smoking).

So, maybe it’s not the dog or the house or the lawnmower, but SOME companies get their hooks into people in very personal ways.

“They exist to create wealth for shareholders that risk their money investing in them.”

That doesn’t sound so different from the mafia. Shake down your clients and employees for every penny that they have to give. After all, they don’t matter if the investor isn’t getting their cut.

You just summarized the last 100 years (perhaps longer) of corporate life in America. In a single column, with exactly 10 points. It’s perfect prose, with a purpose. Clearly, this should be required reading for every first year MBA student, everywhere. And every new-hire orientation (since so many don’t go to business school). If only Machiavelli could have read this, he would have been fascinated, and probably would have added a chapter about it in “The Prince”.

Simmer down my friend (I use friend loosely as we have never met). You seem to have had a rough weekend. Downgrading a stock that has had a great run is in reality a very good idea. If the stock has hit your tgt and you don’t think it will go higher because you have baked in all that is good into your valuation, you have a duty to downgrade. This idea that stocks can’t run forever is called mean reversion and is intellectually honest.

The rest of your ranting on what Wall Street wants is interesting though. As someone who manages money for a living, I have some observations. First, Wall Street wants companies to maximize their (the investors) returns. So it comes down to this, if I can get 25-30% 3-4x’s a year by forcing short term gains from companies I should do that. This leads to a short term focus (it also increased your mistakes in my view). This means that the market is really no longer efficient in the short run because ST investors aren’t focused on value creation. This causes Wall Street to call for the things you mentioned below. I would change a couple of things because you have applied many strategies to companies that are in different stages. For example:
Growth: do 1, 2, 3, and 7 (4 I don’t get)
When idiots punish your stock for investing and you can’t do 1,2,3,7 you should 8 – sometimes mature companies should do this.
9 is the game if your model needs scale and you can’t get there, you have a good technology but you can’t market it, etc…
Regarding 10 – I learned all 3 were stakeholders; unfortunately, you get sued more often from the shareholders lead by class action attorneys, so I would argue JD think has caused companies to focus on the biggest pain point, investors, then customers, and finally employees vs. equal stakeholders.

I do believe that over time, those willing to time arbitrage this volatility and invest in good companies will generate returns beyond their peers.