Chico's Tries Plain Talk, Pfizer Fakes It

As you know, from a big-picture perspective, The Business Press Maven has been bullish for about the past six months. But investors have to be careful, at this point, not to chase the revolting number of thinly sourced stories about potential mergers.

Things have gotten to the point of absurdity, as they were in the late 1990s when any analyst yearning for a headline could essentially custom-design one by calling a reporter to make a prediction that such-and-such-dot-com would hit $400 a share within 18 months.

Speaking of 18 months, that's the time period in which Stifel Nicolaus satellite analyst Kit Spring said on a CNBC feature that Sirius might gobble XM as -- ugh, has there ever been one? -- a "merger of equals."

Well, Spring doesn't actually say the merger is going to happen. You don't have to think or know that these days to have a public position. He said that there was something like a 75% chance of it being done and less than that of it being approved by regulators. Or some such. The basis for his thought? Basically: Mel does mergers.

Spring was the only one interviewed by Carl Quintanilla, who started by acknowledging talk about the merger out there in the "ether." Summed up Carl at the end: "If it happens, we'll have you back. Provocative stuff."

Indeed. Consider The Business Press Maven provoked.