I just can't resist lifting this little ditty from Richard Davis' weekly letter (called Weekly Musings!) and reproduce without comment (or permission actually):
"As defined by the Let’s Make Someone Pay for the Bubble and Sell-Side Research Looks Like a Good Target Act of 2002, this note includes forward, backward and contemporaneous statements that probably don’t shield this analyst or his firm from liability. Specifically, individuals who read this note will see terms such as “believes”, “expects”, “anticipates”, “forecasts”, “who the heck knows”, “you’re guess is as good as mine” and “lot’s of luck on this one”. These are all forms of mealy-mouthed, hedged forecasts. As such, should you have a question or comment on this text, we remind you that we were never there and we don’t recall. You are warned that any recording, rebroadcasting or reuse of this note will result in your immediate and indefinite incarceration in a humid holding pen a few miles south of the Florida Keys."
Davis is a research analyst at Needham & Co., who appears to have been freed by the separation of banking and research to make aggressive, cogent comments that appeal to my troublemaking nature. If I'm ever regulated (lord save me), I'll adopt this statement for my formal disclosures too. And maybe I'll even adapt it to the end-of-email statement that companies have become so fond of inserting automatically these days. Oops: Have to run -- they're calling my flight to Florida so I can be incarcerated for reproducing this!
Love his newsletter, but how can you trust someone who'd write "you're guess" rather than "your"?
Posted by: Emma | November 08, 2005 at 07:43 AM