What My Horse Had For Breakfast

Let's see, he had some oats, fresh alfalfa and hisand mirrors. I read the Annual Report, but I forgot that
vitamins. I know from the mixture that is great food"annual" means that much of the information is over a
and he will win the seventh race this afternoon. Heyear old. How much help can that be? And I forgot
can't lose because of his diet and a great jockey willthat the prospectus was not written to enlighten me,
be riding him.but for the bean counters in Washington. It is supposed
Kinda reminds me of what my broker (horse trainer)to make available to me all the financial information I
told me to do when I was selecting a mutual fund toneed to make a decision to buy. All of this research is
buy. He said to check out what was in the fund (thenonsense, as it will not tell me the one most important
mixture of stocks, like my horse's breakfast) and tothing I need to know - will the price increase so I can
see if there was a good fund manager (the jockey). Imake a profit? Unfortunately, my broker is not going to
did what he said and carefully read the annual reportbe much help here either as he has been trained by
and the prospectus too. Sounds great so I bought it.the Wall Street method which has nothing to do with
What I can't understand is I did all the things the horsemaking money or protecting my capital.
trainer said I should and "Rocket", my horse's name, stillAnyone can look up all kinds of information, but when it
came in 6th in an 8-horse race. All I wanted him to docomes down to it ask this question: Will knowing all that
is come in first and I can't say I'm crazy about thatstuff make me any money? I always figure that if I
mutual fund either.can find it out it isn't worth knowing any more because
That fund has a 5-star rating, is managed by one ofthat information is already reflected in the price of the
the great names on Wall Street and has 60 of thestock or mutual fund. So why bother?
best known company stocks I can think of and yet it isWall Street brokerage companies want you to do all
going down. I am doing everything that conventionalthat "research" because if what you buy doesn't go up
wisdom says I should, but I continue to lose. Is therethey can say you knew everything about it before you
and answer?bought it. It wasn't their fault you did not understand it.
I am not so sure about the horse, but I know theI think I'll sell that horse. And quit listening to my broker.
conventional wisdom of Wall Street is mostly smoke