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We threw out the term respect during these last five years in the stock market. We didn't do it literally, but by equating some companies with others, and some managements with others, we blurred the distinction between great blue-chip companies and fly-by-nights and flashes-in-the-pans and shots-in-the-dark, to exhaust a couple of cliches.

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Take last night. I was with a gathering of individual investors and someone asked me what I thought of Merck (MRK:NYSE - news - boards) and Human Genome (HGSI:Nasdaq - news - boards). (Apropos of biotech, check Lissa Morgenthaler's riposte this past evening.)

I shuddered. She asked why I shuddered. I said because it just seemed so late '90s to put Merck in the same sentence as Human Genome. One company has been with us forever, making great money for its shareholders. Just a phenomenal return vehicle with classic strong management, a great balance sheet and huge, huge cash flow. The other is just getting started, is massively promotional and probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for a couple of legislators trying to get some business in that part of the country.

But somehow during this period we lumped everyone together. We decided that the folks at Yahoo! (YHOO:Nasdaq - news - boards) were every bit as good if not better than the folks at IBM (IBM:NYSE - news - boards) or Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - boards). We awarded the people at Vignette (VIGN:Nasdaq - news - boards) and ArtG (ARTG:Nasdaq - news - boards) the same level of competence we ceded Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - news - boards) and Texas Instruments (TXN:NYSE - news - boards).

And we decided that the fuddy-duddies who run places like Alcoa (AA:NYSE - news - boards) and International Paper (IP:NYSE - news - boards) and Cat Tractor (CAT:NYSE - news - boards)and Deere (DE:NYSE - news - boards) knew nothing, or maybe less even less than the people who ran BankAmerica (BAC:NYSE - news - boards) and PNC (PNC:NYSE - news - boards) and Wachovia Bank (WB:NYSE - news - boards).

We reasoned that the plain vanilla people at the tops of companies like Abbott Labs (ABT:NYSE - news - boards) and Ethan Allen (ETH:NYSE - news - boards) and May Department Stores (MAY:NYSE - news - boards) must be lame-os or they would be working at Drugstore.com (DSCM:Nasdaq - news - boards), Planet Rx (PLRX:Nasdaq - news - boards) and priceline.com (PCLN:Nasdaq - news - boards)!

Oh, boy, was that stupid. The instant blue-chips we created, the Akamais (AKAM:Nasdaq - news - boards) and Inktomis (INKT:Nasdaq - news - boards), the Aribas (ARBA:Nasdaq - news - boards) and the Commerce Ones (CMRC:Nasdaq - news - boards), now, they knew how to run companies, but the folks at Boeing (BA:NYSE - news - boards) and United Technologies (UTX:NYSE - news - boards)? How do they put their pants on in the morning?

Yeah, I am sure Human Genome will have a couple of more days in the sun.

But can we go back to the old notion of speculative, meaning it may pan out or not, vs. blue-chip, meaning it has panned out and will continue to pan out? Can we do that, please?

Thanks.