Yahoo Finance Message Boards : Fiction or Nonsense?

Anyone who reads the Yahoo message boards for financial leads should just save themselves a lot of time and mail their money directly to me. I promise to use it in some decadent and wasteful manner, with possibly completly frivilous side effects.

Why would I say such heresey? Becuase I know what is happening at our company. I am, technically, an insider with access to non-public information. This makes reading the message boards entertaining becuase everyone who actually posts (and let me be clear here, I DO NOT POST on them) claims to have the knowledge that I actually have. Except in cases where two people are arguing and there are only two possible outcomes (thus, logically, one of them has to be right) I find it almost universally true that the people have no clue what they are talking about.

Posts normally demonstrate that the people, in fact, haven't even read the most basic bits of information about the stock they are talking about. I can't give good examples of this, as you would then figure out where I work, but people should be able to read our 10-Q's and other filings and refute the message board people in about 1 minute. If you cheat and use google, then your time may be even faster.

When people say "I have inside information" they NEVER do. They post some amazing drivel that I am ashamed to read.

I will say that the posters are all talked about at work. We cheer on their next bout of stupidity with great enthusiasm. When a particularly ripe nugget of stupidity is posted, word travels quickly and everyone reads it.

I apologize for not being able to give solid examples of the nonsense, but to point you to a company would sort of give me away. BUT - Please please please please don't base your stock picks on what you read on message boards. OR - if you insist, please leave me a note in the comments and I will send you some sort of address to which you can mail the money.