Okay, here’s the predicament. You’re in a terrible fix.
Besides a New Year’s champagne hangover, you’ve just inherited $489 million. Somehow, you must dispose of a fat wad of it, say $100 mil or so.

We have a surefire solution to your dilemma.

All you have to do is become a knucklehead investor. Make it your New Year’s Resolution to blow your dough on the stock market by making wonderfully bonehead decisions.

It’s easy enough. All you have to do is break every stock market rule in the book.

To get your New Year off on the wrong foot, we offer this heart-warming 10-point guide to financial oblivion, guaranteed to succeed in a bull or bear market:

1. INVEST WITH YOUR HEAD, NOT YOUR HEART: Invest in, say, a biotech company without a penny of revenue. At all costs, avoid companies with earnings.

2. FOLLOW THE HERD: Original thinking can cause migraines, so just buy stocks that everyone on the street is hyping. Have you ever known an analyst to be wrong?

3. CATCH A FALLING KNIFE: When you see a stock tank by 90 per cent, convince yourself that it must be cheap because it’s 90 per cent off its high and then watch it drop another 10 per cent. It’ll save you time. Once it’s delisted, you won’t even have to sell it.

4. DON’T TAKE HOT TIPS LIGHTLY: If a cab driver tips you on a hot penny stock, take him seriously because he must know something. He talks to other cab drivers.

5. BUY THE STOCK OF THE YEAR (LAST YEAR’S STOCK OF THE YEAR): For example, buy MDP Worldwide Entertainment (MDP.A-TSX). This Montreal company is only up 1,629.4 per cent since Michael Jackson’s Neverland Entertainment made it a partner. Talk about a facelift. Remember, the sky’s the limit. Where Michael’s concerned, anything’s possible.

6. MARRY YOUR STOCKS: Take your vows when you purchase the stock and hold it till death do you part. So what if the company turns out to be a lying, cheating mess. Don’t even sell if the 999-to-1 shot comes in and some analyst hollers, SELL!

7. DO NOT DIVERSIFY YOUR PORTFOLIO: If your 10-stock portfolio boasts 10 tech stocks, then fantasize about what fun you’ll have if tech stocks rally. Don’t even think about what happens if techs get flushed down the toilet. Reality is not in your game plan. Reality causes stress.

8. BE AN EMOTIONAL INVESTOR: To hell with the shrinks. Hockey is an emotional game, so if you get an elbow in the chops (ie. your stock plummets), get mad and buy more. If it goes down some more, get madder and buy still more. If you’re feeling dispassionate, stay away from the market. Go to the casino.

9. BUY HIGH, SELL LOW: If a stock is up 50 per cent in a week on 30 million shares, don’t risk that feeling of being left out. Join the party, buy high. If a stock you own is down 50 per cent in a week on 30 million shares, don’t be an outcast. Join the crowd.

Sell low.

10. AVOID RESEARCH WITH A PASSION: Don’t let the market fool you into working. Some of those balance sheets will keep you up at night anyway. When in doubt, don’t stay out. Guess.

* STREET TALK: Rip-roarin’ gold stocks were the story of 2002 – seven of the TSX’s biggest winners were mining stocks – as investors turned to defensive plays and the U.S. dollar weakened.

But many gurus who track gold and the U.S. dollar believe this resurgence in gold is just the tip of the iceberg and the yellow metal may steal the show again in ’03.

Frank Giustra, writing in Gold Newsletter soon after the spot price finally cleared the $330 US per ounce barrier, believes gold is on the verge of a boom comparable to the gold-boom years of the early 1980s.

“The most important dynamic affecting the gold price is, and will be, the fate of the U.S. dollar,” writes Giustra, a director of Endeavour Mining Capital Corp. “Why is the dollar’s value being challenged today? Well, quite simply, its role has been abused. Since the U.S. closed the gold window (1971), the only asset backing the dollar has been faith in the U.S. system, which was entrusted to it by the global economy.”

* SAGE WORDS: “Everyone, deep down inside, has a financial death wish. The difference between winners and losers is how well they control it.”

– Trader Michael Parness in Rule The Freakin’ Markets.



HOT ALBERTA STOCK: MDP Worldwide Entertainment
MDP.A-TSX $2.94.
Up $2.77 (+1,629%).
Pop icon Michael Jackson lit the fuse as MDP rocketed from being an obscure 17-cent stock to a significant player in the film industry, fuelled by a partnership with Jackson's Neverland Entertainment. And this was not just a token celebrity pop. Almost overnight, MDP transformed itself from a money-losing proposition to a company with solid earnings. Four other TSX-listed companies churned out gains of 500 per cent or more: Nevsun Resources (NSU), 809.5%; Softchoice Corp. (SO), 645.4%; Calloway REIT (CWT.U), 529.7%; and Eldorado Gold (ELD), 529.6%.



COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Bell Canada International
BI-TSX $2.02.
Down $147.90 (-98.6%).
BCI, a subsidiary of BCE Inc., was Canada's poster child for a laughable business plan and a crummy international wireless and telecom market, crumbling early in the year enroute to winding down its business in a court-supervised Plan of Arrangement. Of course, BCI had plenty of company in falling off the cliff, followed closely by Seitel Inc. (OSL), -94.6%; Pivotal Corp. (PRT), -86.6%; ADF Group (DRX), -85.0%; and Syn X Pharma
(SYY), -83.7%.