Home Depot Hubbub Didn't Set Buyout Tone

What's that, you are asking The Business Press Maven? What's that one practice of the business media that more than any other requires a fathomless level of pomposity, compromised reasoning and disdain for the intelligence of readers and viewers?

Ask me sometime and I'll tell you how I really feel, but it's the trend story.

In this respect, the business media are no different from the media at large, which write about purported trends so frequently that -- well, metaphors fail the situation. Only problem is that out of all the many trends they write about, only the occasional one proves legitimate.

Evidence of a few anecdotes harnessed to several leaps of faith don't always cut it. It is an open joke in the media business -- something that gets reporters and editors elbowing each other in the ribs -- that it takes three examples to declare a trend. The joke to them is what a low standard they hold themselves to, but the joke on investors is that the business media frequently don't even hold themselves to that inadequately set standard.

In fact, if you, as a savvy investor, want to automatically improve your investment performance, just do this: Whenever you are reading some declaration that a trend is afoot, give a bit of extra thought and time before you invest in what is most probably a supposition as thin as reeds. There, nailed a metaphor on that one.

Here's the latest, submitted for your disapproval. Right before the Labor Day weekend I saw a questionable headline from The Financial Times: "Home Depot could set buyout tone."