Fishing on the Ubiquitous Ken Fisher

Got this email from a reader this morning. What a funny rant.

You want to know what is the worst thing to happen to me in "the market"?

Ken Fisher.

Not wipe-outs. Not spread. Not commissions. Not lousy advice. Not bad trades, late trades, missing trades, too-many trades. Not Black-Scholes. Not Yiddish. Not poor discipline. Not stock tips. Not greed and fear. Not bad record-keeping. Not phony hedging. Not Mr. Market. Not even being chucked into the "position trader" bucket by eTrade's software just for backing out of a few bad trades quickly. Not thousands spent on books. Not more thousands spent on subscriptions. Not who-knows-what spent on computers and multiple Internet portals. Not who-knows-what else spent on software, historical data, nice big screens. Not losing friends by yabbering on and on (and on) about the market.

No, Ken Fisher.

This guy is everywhere. Her's on TV. He's in my mail (he's in my MOTHER-IN-LAW'S mail). He's wrapped around otherwise entertaining Cramer StreetWatch shorts. He's staring back at me right now from my spam bucket -- "A Surprising Prediction by Forbes Columnist, Ken Fisher," courtesy of TheStreet.com's mailing list (this, by the way, is almost the best part, since he's paying, only to be chucked into the trash by Postini).

He smirks at me in my dreams. I can do his sales pitch from memory: "Which way is the market headed? Find out now. Hi, I'm Ken Fisher, twenty-year Forbes columnist and CEO of Fisher Investments, a multi-billion dollar, multi-product money management firm, serving prestigious institutions and high net-worth individuals. Get my latest stock market outlook. It's got powerful market insights you can use with your investments now. This is a (beat) limited time offer." He's taking over my brain! All hail Ken Fisher!

Emacs!

OK, Ken. I give up. You win. Send me the damn "surprising prediction." I already know what it says: "Hi, I'm Ken Fisher. Yuh wanna make money in the stock market? Easy. Whine, noodge, cajole, plead, beg, pester, kvetch, yammer, snivel, annoy. Crab, grouse, bellyache. Be everywhere. All the time. Smirk, smirk, smirk, smirk at everyone. Eventually they'll send you money just to shut you up. Or they would, if I hadn't thought of this first."

Thanks. I'm guzzling down the KoolAid. I feel much better now.

He's going to squash me like a bug, isn't he?
Jim B.

p.s. There is a "kenfisher.com" and... IT'S SOMEBODY ELSE!!! Har har har!!!