On answering a request to give my opinion upon a stock market analyst’s report about a fall in Amazon.com stock, I wrote:

“

It is a classic example of classic stock analysis that is likely to be reliable as often (possibly less so ) as it is unreliable.

Much that the author mentions makes sense – however one would be advised to realize that the comment ” if there is a lot of traffic a journey may take longer than if there is little traffic” makes sense too and this is the type of information the author presents that does make sense.

The rest is hardly worth anyone’s time. Reasoning is as good as bad but as he mentions it depends, it depends, it depends… on the way people behave (as to whether there is a concerted move in price one way or another, a staying in place, etc etc etc etc. ) Being a stock analyst and getting paid well for it is in 95% of cases joining the club at a lower intellectual level but same level of achievement (results that are usable or good or correct) as 95% of economists = unreliable, mostly wrong most of the time (again95% is a very accurate figure !).

The trick, as always, is to find a few of the 5% who know when they can be right, can give reasonable gauges of probability of their predicted outcomes and know when it is not possible to be a soothsayer or fortune teller.  ”