Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street: Aug. 22

Temporary Insana-ty

Imagine seeing this job posting:

Wanted: Managing Director for High-Powered Global Hedge Fund. Proven long-term success in managing investments not required.

Ha! That'd be the day. So when former CNBC anchor Ron Insana's foray into running his own fund failed, you'd have thought that would be the end of his investment management career.

After all, who in the money-management business would open their door to an unproven hedge-fund manager who missed his own fund-raising target by nearly 90%, timed the stock and credit market about as badly as one can and bailed on his own fund a year later?

SAC Capital's Steve Cohen, that's who.

Never underestimate the whims of a boss who buys a shark in formaldehyde for $8 million.

Cohen is the hedge fund world's "have" to Insana's "have-not," so we'd like to give his hiring instincts the Five Dumbest benefit of the doubt. But at this point, short of using Insana as the firm's negative tell ("You say you like Fannie Mae(FNM Quote) here, Ron? Um, OK ... thanks."), his immediate value seems a little, er, nebulous.

Maybe every journalist is entitled to a "Lou Dobbs moment" (kudos to Paul Kedrosky): financial journalism legend gets restless, financial journalism legend starts hedge fund, financial journalism legend falls on face.

Of course, even a legend has to eat, and the announcement by Insana suspending his fund's operations was timed with the happy news that he'll climb aboard the fund masthead of pal Cohen. (Insana's own "Dear Investor" letter earlier this month drew some jabs for minimizing the pesky details about fund redemptions).

Still, you've got to admire how Insana rebounded from failure. Too bad investors in his fund weren't so lucky.

-- Mike Goodman

Dumb-o-meter score: 82. "It has been an honor to do business with all of you over the last 14 months," wrote Insana to his investors.