Some Good Advice about the Stock Market

'Hot Stocks For a New Decade?' Wait a Minute!

By BRETT ARENDS
WSJ

Hands up if you had Southwestern Energy.

No? How about XTO Energy? Range Resources? Precision Castparts?

You should have. These were top stocks of the decade in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. Ten years ago, the smartest thing you could have done with your money was to invest in these. Each $1,000 invested then would be worth tens of thousands today.

Now look at the stocks the experts told you to buy instead.

The most widely recommended -- according to a quick survey at the time in the Washington Post -- were America Online, Cisco Systems, Qualcomm, MCI WorldCom, Lucent Technology and Texas Instruments.

Ahem.

(More here.)