FULL OF BULL - excerpts from the Preface

This book is for the individual investor. It is all about investing, not trading, because investing is the way to make money in the stock market. Transaction-oriented Wall Street, unfortunately, tends to discourage and even hinder proper investing. Brokerage advice can be misleading, even contradictory. Professional insiders know better than to take the Street literally. You need to take the same approach. Do what Wall Street does, not what it says. This book will show you how to avoid Street pitfalls, circumvent inappropriate research guidance, correctly interpret Wall Street commentary and opinions, properly assess statements by corporate executives, and put news media reports in their proper context. It will provide you with an understanding of the confusing and conflicted ways of Wall Street, so you can maneuver around these influences and make more profitable long-term investment decisions.

The purpose of this book is to expose the puzzling, deceptive, conflicted behavior of Wall Street that so disadvantages individual investors, tripping them up in their attempts to invest properly and rationally. The output from securities analysts is highly useful as background research. Analysts are steeped in company and industry expertise, provide helpful commentary in reaction to events and news, and publish handy earnings estimates. But an investor needs to know what to discount and how to put Street research in perspective how to separate the wheat from the chaff. An individual investor must grasp how the system works and be able to factor this aspect into his or her investment approach. Once armed with an insider's understanding of all the Street's subtleties, you can be your own investment analyst. My strategies will equip you to evaluate companies, select stocks, and take advantage of your position, free from the many constraints that inhibit professionals.