The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

Kagan makes few qualitative claims about his insights, though maybe he's just being modest. After all, he sold long distance for a time, has consulted with companies on their long-distance needs, and has been working as an analyst for more than a dozen years. Anyway, he scrupulously avoids giving investment advice. "I'm just a voice in the wind," he says. These are just my opinions. ... I don't take myself too seriously. I'm just having fun."

That being said, all these reporter chats -- which Kagan estimates take up more than half his working day -- do have a business purpose. The press mentions, he says, publicize his money-making work as an analyst. That analytical work is pretty much the same thing that he does with reporters, says Kagan: sharing his opinions. But it's mostly in the form of speeches and presentations, he says, for paying, corporate audiences.

After talking with Kagan, however, we wonder whether he does the paying work so he can talk to reporters, not the other way around. "I get lonely when nobody calls," says Kagan. "It's very strange."

2. Flavor of the Month

We like ice cream. We're big fans of ice cream.

But that doesn't mean we eat it at every meal.

Which brings us back to Jeff Kagan, oddly enough. And USA Today. See, in the course of our research, we discovered that USA Today likes Kagan. We mean, really likes Kagan. As in, ice cream four times a day.

In fact, writers at the paper have named him as a source seven times in the past two months and 12 times last year.

USA Everyday Identity of 'telecom analyst' in USA Today, 2002-03

Source: Factiva

Nineteen mentions since Jan. 1, 2002, may not seem like a lot to you, but they do to us. When we ran a search for the phrases "telecom analyst" and "telecommunications analyst" in USA Today, we came up with 61 articles since the beginning of last year. Twenty-nine of those referred to former Salomon Smith Barney Jack Grubman and the quality of his research.