The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

3. Money Down the Hole in One

Go Fore Broke Driving for the green

We know what you tech stock investors are thinking. You've been burned by the market. You're nursing your wounds. You're looking for something safe to put your money into. Something brick-and-mortar.

Well, have we got a deal for you. How about a chain of second-hand golfing equipment?

No, we're not kidding. On Wednesday, second-hand golfing gear retailer 2nd Swing filed for an initial public offering.

Yup, just the place you'd like to park your money in these uncertain times.

2nd Swing is losing money, of course. On the bright side, same-store sales were up 20% in 2001. Unfortunately, the same-store sales increase dropped to 9% in the first half of 2002. And though interest in golf has generally grown over the past 20 years, says 2nd Swing, the number of rounds played during the first eight months of 2002 fell 2.1% from the same period of 2001.

Oh, did we mention that 2nd Swing will be traded on the Amex? Chug!

4. Go Doughnuts

You know, we're big fans of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (KKD Quote), but this is nuts.

The Hartford Courant reports that this week, a man camped out for two nights outside a Connecticut Krispy Kreme shop in order to be the first in line for the store's grand opening.

OK, OK, maybe it wasn't so Dumb. For being first in line, the man won free doughnuts for a year.

But that doesn't explain the other people in line, like the guy who camped out in front of the store one night ... in order to buy one doughnut.

Ever wonder what happened to all those people who used to camp out in front of Grateful Dead concerts? Now you know.

5. Nortel More Tell

On the bright side, the ailing telco equipment supplier Nortel Networks (NT Quote) has a plan to rescue its stock price, which closed at 44 cents on Thursday.

If the company can last until next spring, it plans to execute a reverse stock split -- one that would get its shares trading somewhere between $10 and $20 apiece.

At current prices, that implies a reverse split with a ratio somewhere between 1:22 and 1:45.

Now to the dark side. Once that reverse split goes through, points out one Nortel employee, he'll own options with a strike price, oh, somewhere around $2,500.

That's building wealth the old-fashioned way: Never.