Yesterday I had this to say about Freeport McMoRan (FCX) and its heavy drop on the news of its 2009 cutback plans:
Lo and behold, this morning presents a great example of what I’m talking about. Some dude named Marc Courtney writes at SeekingAlpha today on how he’s bailing on FCX due to yesterday’s news. So as I’d never read the guy before and on the basis of “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands*”, your DD loving Otto checked out Courtney’s previous market musings.
And as suspected, he’s an idiot.
In this post dated September 14th he was long Petrobras (it was U$45 at the time).
This post dated September 9th is entitled “Seven reasons why inflation won’t vanish” should be re-titled “Seven reason why my net worth is vanishing”
In this post dated October 5th, this joker is long FCX amongst other stuff (plenty of crap written about silver in this one). Strange how he claims he’d “just bought” FCX yesterday, writing today that “I was fortunate. My buy limit order was executed at $17.80 and I was able to sell my shares of Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) at $17.50.”
There’s a whole heap of crap to choose from and the above is scratching the surface of his mediocrity. The guy has no scruples, or is delusional, or most likely both. What he must be is a lot poorer than he was six months ago. I haven’t even started on all the goldbug and silverbug conspiracy crap he comes out with. Go have a look at his library of titles yourself.
I don’t bother submitting my stuff to SeekingAlpha any more and it’s because of dumbasses like Courtney. The site has contributors of value (the macro stuff is good), but the resource sectors in particular are full of crud and dragged down by lowest common denominators like this clown. However, checking out the site (via the title lines every few days) is a useful exercise in sheep psyche.
Put simply, half-baked analyses from ego-monsters like the Courtneys of this world are gift-wrapped contrary indicators. Use them wisely.
*Douglas Adams quote (and if you don’t know who Adams is (well…was), you’re seriously missing out).