The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

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The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street: March 28

03/28/08 - 07:18 AM EDT

Marek Fuchs

5. Buy Bear on eBay

Bear Stearns shareholders received a small mercy this week when JPMorgan Chase'sJPM offer for their once-highly valued stock was raised to $10 from $2. But alas, more indignity lurked where indignity often does: in the dirty laundry pile.

Remember how the stock was trading at $170 a year ago? Well, a Bear Stearns T-shirt sold on eBayEBAY for $151, only 19 bucks off the high the stock traded at.

The ghoulish habit of buying trinkets from failed companies has some precedence in the (in)famous tilted Enron E, for example, which fetched $44,000 at auction a few years back, making the Bear Stearns T-shirt look like a bargain. Some might question the wisdom of allowing a product with such bad vibes into your home, but maybe by tilting the E the other way or washing the T-shirt, you can cleanse away the bad. That said, it's now beginning to make sense that my golf game has been a bit off for the past, oh, two decades.

Dumb-o-meter score: 85. Anyone want a bag of Drexel Burnham Lambert imprinted golf Tees? Going once, going twice...




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At the time of publication, Fuchs had no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this column.

Marek Fuchs was a stockbroker for Shearson Lehman Brothers and a money manager before becoming a journalist who wrote The New York Times' "County Lines" column for six years. He also did back-up beat coverage of The New York Knicks for the paper's Sports section for two seasons and covered other professional and collegiate sports. He has contributed frequently to many of the Times' other sections, including National, Metro, Escapes, Style, Real Estate, Arts & Leisure, Travel, Money & Business, Circuits and the Op-Ed Page. For his "Business Press Maven? column on how business and finance are covered by the media, Fuchs was named best business journalist critic in the nation by the Talking Biz website at The University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Fuchs is a frequent speaker on the business media, in venues ranging from National Public Radio to the annual conference of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Fuchs appreciates your feedback; click here to send him an email.


Life & Money

The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

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