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- Path: sparky!uunet!crdgw1!rdsunx.crd.ge.com!wren!stpeters
- From: stpeters@crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
- Newsgroups: misc.invest
- Subject: Re: Condemned by Barron's--Is it significan
- Message-ID: <1992Dec30.013442.12845@crd.ge.com>
- Date: 30 Dec 92 01:34:42 GMT
- References: <calinski.725654700@calspan.com>
- Sender: usenet@crd.ge.com (Required for NNTP)
- Reply-To: stpeters@crd.ge.com
- Organization: GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY
- Lines: 40
- Nntp-Posting-Host: 3.28.92.205
-
- In article 725654700@calspan.com, calinski@calspan.com (Peter J. Calinski) writes:
-
- > Maybe we could establish a track record on Barrons.
-
- Barrons - or Bearons as I prefer to spell it - comes under a lot of
- criticism for being excessively negative, enough so that in an issue a
- couple of months or so ago Abelson felt the need to defend them in his
- regular front-page column. His defense was the claim that they are just
- contrarians, balancing optimism when it's too high - and by implication,
- being rosy when everyone else is down. That issue reported sentiment
- indicators with very low level of bullishness - it came out at roughly
- the bottom of 1992's dip to near record-low levels, so to support his
- defense, you'd expect them to be cheery and optimistic, right?
-
- Well, that same issue (or one within a week or so) had as it's cover
- story an article making the case that we were not in a recession ...
- we were in a depression!
-
- Bearons hits some bullseyes, and you'll read about them over and over.
- When they're totally wrong, they just drop the topic. To their credit,
- though, they will publish letters to the editor that disagree with
- them, including ones that make them look dumb. My favorite recent
- letter was written following that depression article, by someone noting
- that he had heard its author give a speech making the same arguments in
- 1982 - a bad year to buy stocks, to be sure :-)
-
- Several years ago Abelson predicted Sun Micro's imminent demise due to
- competition from the big boys, DEC and IBM. In a cover article, they
- virtually accused GE's huge financial services business of being a
- Savings&Loan (hey, I got a lot of our stock cheaper in my 401k thanks
- to them). Another of Abelson's targets this year was Cisco Systems.
-
- Some of their right-wing editorials make fun reading, they're a great
- source of info that's hard to find elsewhere, but like a wise man once
- advised me about brokers, use them for information, not advice.
-
- --
- Dick St.Peters
- GE Medical Systems, New Berlin, WI stpeters@med.ge.com (temporary)
- GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@crd.ge.com (permanent & forwarded)
-