Stewart Vs Cramer on Daily Show, march 12.

[kandrathe]

If "any serious investor" wasn't following the herd along with the rest of the nodding heads, then the world is experiencing a dire shortage of serious investors. The market got burned every bit as badly as any TV pundit. The argument that they deserved it probably has merit; the argument that they were too smart to buy in to the bunk they were selling on TV (and not just TV) surely does not, looking at the state of things.

Serious investors can get burned by false reports and outright deception or fraud from companies (officers). Baring that, publicly traded companies need to publish their quarterly results which along with economic trends is the basis for taking the risk of investing in a company. Not CNBC, or their pundits. There are some "sheep" who might buy or sell stocks based on emotion, but it usually results in something akin to surgery based on emotion. Bloody awful (e.g. tech stock bubble burst of 2000). When companies defraud and deceive (and often when they don't) they are sued by their stockholders.

Most movement in stocks are the cause of mutual funds shifting positions. The funds decisions are made by people who are very very good, and even they can make bad choices at times.