The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

1. A Fraud He Went a-Courtin', Uh-Huh

We at the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab tend to wax indignant over schemes to scam investors out of millions of dollars. But this time around, we'll make an exception.

The beneficiary here is one Paul Tetu, described by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday as a 63-year-old "aspiring screenwriter, novelist and movie producer."

For the past five years, says the SEC, Tetu has been placing advertisements in The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers promising investors annual risk-free returns of 70% to 100% through "exclusive secret trading programs."

The investment Tetu advertised, says the SEC, was a total fraud. That, of course, makes us feel awful bad for the people who sent their money to Tetu to invest.

Except for one thing. According to the SEC, no one ever sent Tetu money. Not once in the past five years. About the only thing he ever cheated people out of, we suppose, was the money they spent on their long-distance bills when they called him up to chat.

Now, is that pathetic or what? We just lived through one of the biggest market bubbles in recorded history -- one in which people fought tooth and nail for the right to invest in publicly traded crud that flamed out within months -- and this guy couldn't scam a single person over five years? What a loser.

Curious to know what the secret of this guy's nonsuccess was, we left a message for the only Paul Tetu listed in California. He didn't get back to us. Maybe the hurdle for Tetu's potential victims was the $10 million minimum investment the SEC says he asked for. If he really wanted people to blow that kind of money, he should have hired a real Wall Street investment bank to do the job.