Maven: HSBC's Rancid Rhetoric

The other similarity is absurd valuations. To be fair, Fortress has a better income picture than most of the Internet incubators did, but its income is also unreliable.

Hold the hem of The Business Press Maven's shirt while he walks you through two different articles on the same subject.

CNNMoney.com assembles all the facts but focuses on how much money everyone involved made. Superficial city. The headline is a bit breathless: "Fortress execs hit $10 billion jackpot: In the country's first public offering of a hedge fund, the stock price soars -- turning the fund's owners into some very rich men."

Never you mind that they were already quite rich, and the rich getting richer ain't exactly headline-worthy. We read all about the stock prices with predictable verbs such as "pop," and all about the holdings. But we read nothing, not a single fact or, more importantly, thought, that would help investors. Contrast this with the Financial Times' piece, which is comparatively fat-free in terms of facts, giving just the basics, but lays out why Fortress' income stream doesn't deserve such a valuation.

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If a company put itself up for sale in a forest and no one was there to buy, would there still be a sale? I pose the question that might very well come back and bite me about Bristol-Myers Squibb(BMY Quote).