Market Call is a soap opera on Report On Business TV in which distraught investors who paid $120 for a single share of Nortel Networks (NT-TSE, recent price $6.68) phone the show and cry on the shoulders of an investment professional masquerading as a shrink.

Generally, the pro guesting on the show will offer comforting words to the weepy-eyed caller.

For example, the pro will make the caller feel better by saying: “It could be worse, Sal. You could’ve paid $121 for Nortel. Please remove all sharp objects from your home.”

This generally assuages Sal enough so he forgets to remind the fund manager that it was actually he who recommended Nortel as a screaming buy at $120.

The script of the hour-long show weekdays at 11 a.m. MDT (replay at 8 p.m.) doesn’t change a lot. The Bay Street experts generally shy away from trashing even the trashiest of companies, presumably fearing they may bump into the company CEO during Happy Hour, and almost always have a cheery word of encouragement for the callers.

But a funny thing happened on a recent show. Candor reigned supreme. David Driscoll, a partner at Toron Capital Markets, chucked the script and ripped virtually every stock, and, in so doing, provided a wakeup call to investors.

At times, host Bruce Sellery, pinch hitting for Jim McConnell, appeared stunned by Driscoll’s bluntness and refreshing candour. When a caller asked about AOL Time Warner (AOL-NYSE), Driscoll cringed and simply responded with an animated thumbs-down gesture.

It was a beautiful sight to behold.

Over the past couple of years, the cheerleaders on Market Call have unabashedly waved their pom-poms at one company in particular. That company is BCE Inc. (BCE-TSE), the parent company of ROB-TV whose stock price has been beaten to a pulp of late.

Driscoll, a former baseball statistician who appropriately poses on his company’s website (www.toron.com) with a baseball bat, swung from the heels when asked his opinion of BCE.

“To me,” scowled Driscoll in reference to BCE’s strategy of meshing its diversified media holdings, “convergence is a crock!”

The Toronto-based Driscoll ventured that BCE still has plenty of downside, perhaps “$20 or lower . . . There’s a joke going around that BCE’s a company with writedowns and the next step is right down.”

On the recent program, Driscoll batted .909, tearing the cover off the ball by slamming 20 of the 22 companies and sectors he was asked about.

Some of his nastiest swings were directed at tech stocks such as BCE Emergis (IFM-TSE), Oracle (ORCL-Nasdaq), Celestica (CLS-TSE), Research In Motion (RIM-TSE), Amazon (AMZN-Nasdaq) and eBay (EBAY-Nasdaq).

“Why pay such a high price for a bunch of people selling hockey cards?” cracked Driscoll of eBay.

The only two stocks that escaped the wrath of Driscoll were Fairfax Financial (FFH-TSE) and Banco Bilbao (BBV-NYSE).

In an investment world that generally runs in packs, Driscoll deserves a standing ovation for marching to the beat of his own drummer.

Hopefully, ROB-TV will have him back for a return engagement.

* HOLD THE PHONE: One of the few other shoot-from-the-hip experts on Market Call is Ross Healy, whose claim to fame was being ahead of the pack on Bay Street in predicting the crash of Nortel.

Healy, president of Toronto-based Strategic Analysis Corporation, now has his ominous sights set on Telus (T-TSE), the company whose stock is already down 50 per cent from its 12-month high of $36.

Healy recently made Telus one of his top three picks on Market Call, but not as a buy. He recommended investors short the stock.

“Where they find a bottom I don’t know,” snorted Healy. “The potential for writedowns will unnerve investors and the potential for a cut of the dividend.”

* STREET TALK: “The swaying grand piano over the market’s head for now is the threat of a blowup in the Middle East. At this stage, we see little technical evidence supporting a sustained move higher in stocks and near-term downside risks appear to outweigh potential upside rewards.”

– Richard Dickson, technical strategist, Hilliard Lyons Investments.

* SAGE ADVICE: “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”

– Bob Dylan.

HOT ALBERTA STOCK: Brocker Technology Group



BKI-TSE $1.70 Up 39 cents (+29.8%) on 17,100 shares (for week ending April 5). A restructuring program has done wonders for Brocker stock which has rocketed 750 per cent since mid-December. The Edmonton-based company has received shareholder approval to acquire Generic Technologies which markets information technology products in the South Pacific Islands and will soon be changing its name to Datec Group.

COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Sustainable Energy Technologies

STG-CDNX 11 Cents Down 7 cents (-38.9%) on 184,300 shares (for week ending April 5). The Calgary-based developer of power technologies blew a fuse on its share price with an announcement that it would not proceed with a planned $700,000 financing, which leaves the company low on working capital. Sustainable also said it would not go ahead with a planned acquisition of a battery management technology.