Will Rogers might have felt right at home on a financial-news show, if he could manage to play it straight. Television has fallen in love with the financial markets and, like Tom and Daisy Buchanan of Gatsby fame, these lovers blithely leave damage in their wake.

One part of this problem is driven by the best of intentions, the other by the best of inventions. First, there are the financial shows themselves, in which hard-working and well-meaning reporters feed a seemingly insatiable appetite for the news-of-the-minute. This daily deluge of information is of little value to long-term investors, though it is distracting. What is less obvious is that info is of negative value to speculators.

If you consider yourself a speculator (and if your average holding period isn't measured in years, you are a speculator), you're not going to lead a happy life trading on "hot" news. If you think you can react more quickly to the latest headlines than the professionals who make markets in these stocks, you should remember the logic behind the old Wall Street adage, "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news."

Furthermore, how do you know which rumors have merit? (Inside information doesn't count here, but it might have a big impact in court.) And don't forget the cost of commissions for brokers and bid/ask spreads for specialists — if you don't think these add up, bear in mind that the title of a fine book from the 1950s, Where Are the Customers' Yachts?, is based on the punchline to a joke about someone admiring all the brokers' yachts.

Another problem with the constant urgency of financial shows is that they give the concept of activity more credit than it deserves. It's easy to confuse motion with progress since in most aspects of our lives, the more we do, the better the results. With investing, however, the best course is usually to work hard in analyzing possible decisions, and then not taking them. Warren Buffett has suggested that people would be better off if they were allowed only 25 investment decisions in their entire lifetimes. Regarding his own extraordinary success, he has written that "lethargy bordering on sloth is the cornerstone of our investment philosophy", with the proud motto: "Don't just do something, stand there!"

For television commentators, by contrast, existence is defined by activity. They must, however, negotiate the challenge of having to talk constantly without ever being clearly wrong. Faced with this challenge, there is a certain temptation to focus on the immediate present or, better still, the recent past. That's fine for them but it's not particularly useful for anyone else. (After the market rebounded from the 1998 sell-off, one reporter informed us that buying on the past dips "was a no-brainer" — I wonder what he's saying now?) Spend too much time tripping the financial light fantastic and you might end up doing a reasonable impression of Captain Queeg.

Whatever damage the investing shows can do to your health is dwarfed by the possible consequences of listening to the commercials which pay for the shows. The investment industry has managed an extraordinary feat in the last century, by prospering while providing a product of negative value-added. These commercials are on the cutting edge of that desire, and ability, to separate average people from their money.

In one commercial, an envious party-guest badgers the aggressively disinterested man-of-the-house about his extraordinary recent success. Reluctantly, Horatio Alger lets on that he has been trading foreign-currency futures. But not to worry, as we are told that the largest banks do the same thing. The fact that individuals speculating on 90%+ margin is a bit different than major banks hedging billions of dollars of currency exposure evidently didn't make it through the editing process.

(If you're interested in trading currency futures, start with Adam Smith's wonderful description of the cocoa market in The Money Game. If that doesn't disabuse you of the notion, think of the impact that trading futures has had on some of the brightest hedge-fund managers in recent years. If you're still not convinced, live with your doubts but avoid futures.)

Not all commercials are nefarious — most are irresponsible at worst. For example, a mutual-fund company might highlight one of its successful funds without mentioning its unsuccessful ones. The implication here is that the successful fund is representative of the entire company's performance rather than a biased sample. (After all, placing bets on all the horses in a race will give you a winner but does that make you an expert?) An additional risk is that this year's hot fund might be next year's disappointment, as sectors and approaches wax and wane — if you're always chasing the herd, be careful where you step.

In another commercial, the warmly reassuring voice-over for an investment-management company provides a convincing description of how this company fought the common wisdom with diligent research and reasoning, and (no peeking)...made the right decision! Following one of these commercials, I tracked down someone who had been involved in this drama — the commercial, not the decision — to find out which stock was involved. As it turns out, the commercial wasn't based on an actual situation.

Which brings to mind the elusive key to forecasting (with diligent research and geometric logic) the weekly lottery numbers. And I would've produced that key, if they hadn't pulled the Caine out of action.