Today’s Braingle Brain teaser covered how so-called stock market gurus pull in gullible victims.  Again, this isn’t new, but is crucial to remember.

Ok, so here is the deal. One day, you get a call from some random guy who says "Next week, ABC stock is going to move up. I'm not asking you to buy any stock from me, but just take a look." You do so (why not, it can't hurt...) and he was correct. Sure enough, next week you get another call from the "Lucky Guesser". His pick? "DEF is going to go down." And guess what! He was right again!

For five weeks, this guy predicts the behavior of stocks. The sixth time he calls he says, "I've been right the past five times. This time I have a stock for you and I do want you to buy some shares through me. What do you say?"

Well, what do you say. Do you buy shares from this guy?

 

Answer:

Heck no! He's playing you like a puppet. First week he calls 100 people, says to half ABC will go up and to the other fifty, he claims it will go down. When ABC goes up, he called the fifty he'd correctly predicted to and told half DEF would go up, and half it would go down. By the time he's at week five, he has a few people (2-4) thinking he's a stock market god.

 

 

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 8/16/2005 06:16:00 PM Send this post: