The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 8)

br> Dallas, TX /p>

My problem with the issue of "Earnings Guidance" has little to do with Coca-Cola's disclosures and more to do with how this information is used by the market manipulators on Wall Street and how the various reporting companies are forced to react to it.

The brokerage industry (market manipulator) hypes the information and the companies either "manage" their earnings guidance or outright "fudge" the numbers top cover their butts.

The brokerage industry has somehow pre-ordained earnings guidance as the "Be all to end all" to support stock valuations. The resulting frenzy that occurs when targets are missed or exceeded causes great volatility and usually has little to do with the fundamental values. This, in turn, gives the stock market the aura of a casino and is very unnerving to so-called "buy and hold" investors, who are conservative by nature.

p>I think that is the crux of the whole problem and why people like me stay out of the market altogether. br> -- Jerome J. Brick br> Beaver Dam, AZ /p> p> Michael Craig replies: br> I support the decision of any investor who stays out of the market for any reason, especially if they think it's a rigged game. (My problem is with the whiners who complain about the crooked markets and continue to invest.) Mr. Brick's fears, whether founded or not, are what's making it tougher for me and the other 50 million or so Americans who are in the market. Every buck on the sidelines means that much less liquidity, that much less efficiency. /p>

That's why, as much as I believe in the market working these things out on its own, the government has to step up to the plate here. We need someone telling us not that the market's safe -- if McDonald's can lose money, then any company can -- but that we can take the information out there at face value.

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