When is a guru really a guru?

Jason’s recent talk with Eric Tyson on The Creating Wealth Show #95 revealed this best-selling author’s thoughts on the topic of market gurus and their prognostications. Is it conspiracy, idiocy, or basic opportunism? Tyson targets the Johnny-come-latelies who have piled onto the recent stock market decline and floated around devilish Dow predictions like 3900 or worse.

Should we pay attention to these people?

Tyson’s verdict is you need to look back at their history of prediction. Roll back the clock 5, 10, or even 15 years ago to see where they were and what they were doing then. Were these market gurus on the money or even in the ball par? What’s their track record? If they’ve been right before, maybe it’s worth your time to at least listen to them now.

The unfortunate truth is that a falling market attracts negative forecasters like flies to…you know what. It’s human nature to be fascinated with spectacular failures. Let’s call them crashes. Car crashes, movie crashes, and market crashes. Negativity sells in the media business, so let’s see who can make the lowest prediction and still be taken seriously.

Does anyone take ANY cable show seriously?

Why would you be in the stock market anyway? Unless you have a morbid desire to reduce the size of your nest egg, a properly diversified real estate is proven to be history’s best investment.