Maven: AMD Press Does Not Compute

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The Business Press Maven is endlessly fascinated by the business media because of all the complex issues of thought and great intellectual heft it presents every day. For example, this very morning, from the wire services to CNBC, we can't tell whether analysts expect AMD(AMD Quote), the No. 2 chipmaker, to report within weeks that fourth-quarter sales were $1.85 billion ... or nearly a half-billion less?

You might think that pinpointing a past number without a half-billion dollars of wiggle room, quite a generous allotment for error in my modest opinion, is easy and hardly an intellectual exercise on par with solving the problem of cold fusion. But apparently not. The Associated Press and Reuters messed it up late last night.

So did Joe Kernen this morning, saying the wrong thing on CNBC in the wee hours, when The Business Press Maven and seven traders with sleep disorders are the only ones watching. Kernen was quickly corrected by an analyst and went on with the right number on his lips. Even The Wall Street Journal seemed to try to finesse the issue by not including a previous expectation. Bad high-end scribes, bad.

Anyhow, intrepid traders, be careful that the grossly miscalculated number does not become the basis for your thinking. AMD, with competition from Intel(INTC Quote) hurting business, has enough problems without the mistake.