"Nowadays, you can't turn on the TV without some talking head telling you about the economy. Yet, in a world overrun by 'analysts,' only one man has the guts, the brains, and, quite frankly, the poetry to put it all in perspective.That man is Michael Silverstein... Silverstein is a true intellectual." — Gersh Kuntzman, The New York Post

"Few people have found much to laugh about in the stock market this year. Michael Silverstein is the exception. The Bard of the Bourse can find humor in losing money, globalization and stock options." — USA Today

More Of What The Critics Are Saying
About Silverstein's Verse

 

Why does anyone still take stock analysts seriously? Aside from the flagrant conflicts of interest inherent in a system where the people who render opinions on stocks work for the people who sell these same securities, there’s the undeniable fact that these hirelings have been conspicuously wrong in their calls for decades. Far too positive in the bubble market of the 1990’s. Far too negative since.

"Woodman, Spare that Tree!" by George Pope Morris is a poem in which a guy pleads with a logger not to chop down a tree to which he’s sentimentally attached. My Wall Street version begs for mercy from analysts when it comes to sparing a stock on which I am financially dependent.

Analysts, Spare My Stock

Analysts, spare my stock.
Don’t rate it down a peg.
I can’t afford the hit.
Don’t make me whine and beg.

In years past you were nice.
You never uttered "sell."
The rubes took your advice.
It made my holdings swell.

You wore a smile then.
I loved your upbeat gush.
So what if it was hype
To garner bonus slush?

Delusion is no sin
When all share in the dream.
You made our picks seem wise.
We all could gloat and preen.

Now all of that has changed.
You’ve done a switcheroo.
In ev’ry gleam of light,
You see a darker hue.

The reason here is clear,
Why you are gotten meaner.
You think it’s the best way,
To dodge a fed subpoena

But please keep this in mind
As you prognosticate:
On your next half-baked guess
May rest my pension’s fate.

**********

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Michael Silverstein

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