The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

So will there indeed be a consumer backlash against the litigious record industry? Our speculation is not yet belied.

4. Precursors. Foiled Again.

And this week's puzzling name change award goes to the folks formerly known as The Precursor Group -- a Washington, D.C.-based independent investment research firm.

According to an announcement issued late last month, The Precursor Group has changed its name to Precursor.

Which leads the research lab to ask, where did everyone else go? Is there only one of you guys left?

Absolutely not, responds Precursor Chief Executive Scott Cleland. In fact, he says, Precursor has grown from seven analysts when it was launched three years ago to about 17 today.

So if the team is getting bigger, why make it sound smaller by dropping the Group?

"It increases simplicity and clarity of our brand," says Cleland. "Just like no one says Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL Quote). They're referred to as Delta. United Airlines is United."

Avoiding snide remarks about airlines being grateful that anyone calls them at all, we asked Cleland what he was precursing these days.

"We're questioning the growth expectations for Cisco (CSCO Quote)," he says. And, he adds, "We do not believe telecom is anywhere near bottoming."

Which reminds us: We at the Five Dumbest Things Research Lab are changing our name. But we still haven't decided between Dumbest and Things.

Pray for Those Short Deliver us from triple witching

5. Stock and Awe

Finally, someone out there wants you to pray for your stockbroker.

No, it's not your stockbroker.

The U.K.-based Industrial Christian Fellowship, Reuters reported last week, is distributing prayers for people in the financial world, posting them on its Web site under the headline, "When did you last pray for your stockbroker?"

Initially, the whole thing struck us as a hoax, especially because we couldn't find any corroboration to the story on the ICF's Web site -- no prayer there, nor mention of any John Raymond, the ICF "executive member" quoted in the Reuters story.