Not-So-Genius Wall Street Analysts Beat Up GE AFTER The Fact

The only thing reliably predictable about the predictive ability of Wall Street analysts is their ability to clearly see the past, while consistently failing to foresee the future, and their tendency toward undeserved self-congratulation.

Where were these genius analysts when all of the banks and investment banks were filling portfolios with subprime loans, while the Enrons of the world were scamming shareholders, and while borrowers who shouldnt have been borrowing were burying themselves in debt they could never repay, courtesy of overzealous lenders who routinely dispensed with good credit judgement? Where were they while their own employers were sullying their reputations and laying the groundwork for huge writeoffs on a scale heretofore unheard of, the likes of which few financial institutions have ever seen? Where were they while their cohorts were designing complex derivative products that could never be understood, in the name of risk mitigation--products that ended up themselves ratcheting up the collective risk in the financial system to levels we couldn't even begin to imagine?

Where were they? They were smoking fat cigars with the companies they cover, eating expense account lunches, and generally enjoying their sinecures of pontification.

These self-proclaimed geniuses of Wall Street are not 1/10th as smart as they profess to be. Kicking GE after it admittedly screws up on its quarterly guidance, albeit in a market meltdown no one could have predicted-- doesnt take a genius. Calling these debacles BEFORE they happen is something the analysts-and the journalists who report their bloviations-have yet to do.

I say, ignore the windbags.

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