[larrys]

Right and that was his opinion. Obviously in any decision (investment or otherwise) there are going to be people on both sides of the issue.

The problem is knowing whether to believe them or not.

(Like Wanamaker said about advertising, something like "I know 50% of my ads work but I don't know which 50%")

[jlgreco]

Of course it was his opinion.. what else could it be?

The point is that this columnist is not being revisionist.

[larrys]

I'm saying that the fact that the WSJ published something which was negative to the stock (by the same author) in advance is not conclusive in helping you make a decision. You can read pieces that are pro and con to a particular product, service, stock all the time (remember the publicity surrounding iphone as one example). You can always go back and say "see here is what I said I was right". The question is how many things has someone said (or a newspaper) and what percentage turned out correct. My point is it was great that there was that info saying "stay away" in advance. But there have also been those writings that have turned out wrong.

I don't think this is done anymore but stock brokers used to call prospects with hot stock tips saying "not asking you to buy this today". Not everyone got the same tip of course. They would then call back weeks later but only call the people who they had told about a stock that increased saying "see I was right, now buy this stock from me now". (A variation was in "Boiler Room" I believe).