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wayne wilderson effect

With stock prices hitting rock bottom, I keep thinking it’s now or never to jump into the market. Question is for a newbie, what’s a good strategy for picking stocks? Is it any different than walking into a casino or going to a race track and having a feeling about a lonely slot machine or a horse with a name you like? I’ve been asking around for advice and in the process, noticed a pattern I’m calling the Wayne Wilderson effect. What is that? Hang in there and I’ll tell you.

Meanwhile, since my only experiencing picking stocks dates back to middle school when I had to play the Stock Market Game in Social Studies, I turned to the experienced experts at the Trusted Expert Network. Naturally they talked about doing research, exploring industry trends and following sites like Motely Fool, IBD, WSJ, and Market Watch. Excellent advice, of course, and what you would expect from highly trained professionals, but since I’m only talking about investing hundreds of dollars to start, not thousands, I thought I could be more adventurous… really go out on a limb.

This is where the Wayne Wilderson effect comes in:

Maybe you will recognize Wayne from television and commercials. He is a fine actor and a solid spokesperson, but there does seem to be a pattern. Wayne was the spokesperson for Washington Mutual, and as you may remember, WAMU failed as a bank and then was folded into JP Morgan Chase. Next I noticed that Wayne was the spokesman for General Motors. If I have to explain their collapse, you’ve either been on a very long vacation or sticking only to the sports pages. Next came Wayne’s work for Circuit City, Toyota, and Yahoo. See the pattern? Now I am in no way suggesting that Wayne is responsible for the demise of these companies, but perhaps his connection to them is one of those good indicators of where NOT to invest. Sorry Wayne. Somebody had to say it.

To find out what other companies Wayne is pitching, check out the link to his personal site. I’m not saying they’re bad bets, just that caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.

As for other feedback I got about stock picking, Henry Kilpatrick of VA bought Turner Broadcasting in the 80’s so that he could tell friends he owned the Atlanta Braves with Ted Turner. Debra Winegarten of TX was a courier and picked stocks based on which companies had the cleanest docks. Not to be out done, Stephanie Sharp decided to buy stocks that had either U.S. or America/American in the name. She claims that her patriotic picks have yielded her seven times what she bought the stocks for. That’s great news.

But is there a method to the madness, or like the NCAA Final Four, upsets are expected to happen and predicting the outcome near impossible? While I still haven’t decided which stocks to buy yet, at least I can say that the Wayne Wilderson effect has saved me a bundle. Not that companies he didn’t represent fared much better. Perhaps with stock prices so low right now, the best philosophy is to just buy in to something and hope your instincts are good. Or as they used to say over at the New York Lottery, “You gotta be in it to win it.”

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Tags: circuit city, general motors, investing, picking stocks, stock market, wamu, wayne wilderson, zack rosenberg

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 6:49 am and is filed under investing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.