Financial Guru's Annual "Nobody Knows Nothin" List

Financial Guru Danny Fontana Reveals His Annual "Nobody Knows Nothin'" Top Ten List; Picks Include Barney Frank, Jim Cramer and T. Boone Pickens

(Los Angeles, January 12, 2009) --Danny Fontana knows a few things about money. The syndicated radio talk show host, author and financial advisor has worked with some of the leading lights in the financial industry including Sir John Templeton, Peter Lynch and Louis Rukeyser. But the wisdom he's gleaned from them and other experts might surprise you: "Nobody Knows Nuthin'," Fontana claims and he's backing his mantra up with his pick of the top 10 know-nothing's of '08. Fontana's picks include Jim Cramer who swore that Bear Stearns wasn't going down, Congressman Barney Frank who insisted that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were solvent and T. Boone Pickens who promised that oil would hit $150 a barrel by the end of the year.

"Here's what I learned from my financial mentors," noted Fontana. "In the near term, nobody can predict with any accuracy what the stock market is going to do. Lynch may have said it best when he told me "whatever happens in a stock portfolio in the first two years is an entirely random event."

Fontana has harsh words for the so-called financial experts in the media who purport to give advice to investors: "You have a mainstream press that is all too willing to get you to believe that they know what is going to happen in the next day or two, and that you would be well served to listen to them," he argues. "That is baloney. The only known thing about the daily activity on the New York Stock Exchange is that it is going to open at 9:30 in the morning and close at 4:00 in the afternoon. Everything else is a guess."

The one thing Fontana feels secure in recommending is that if you get into the market and stay there, over the long haul, you'll do fine:

"In the 1990's investors earned a handsome double digit compounded rate of return. That means that all the individual investor had to do was stay put for 10 years and their money would have more than doubled in the decade," he notes. "If you go back 100 years and track the performance of stocks, bonds, cash, and inflation, you will find that the stock market through all of the travails of that time (including a depression and several wars) returned more than twice any other investment - comfortably outpacing inflation. If I can influence you to do that, than perhaps we can change the mantra from Nobody Knows Nuthin' to Nobody Knows Nuthin' - - .except for YOU. You are going to hear everything under the sun when it comes to investments.

Some of it will be encouraging, some of it will be dissuading. There will undoubtedly be bad news, but I stand by my mantra - and the good news that this is America. We have a 200 year head start on the rest of free world when it comes to the free market, and in the long run our system works. That I do know."

Fontana's Nobody Knows Nuthin' Top 10:

A very powerful and durable rally is in the works. But it may need another couple of days to lift off. Hold the fort and keep the faith!
-- Richard Band, editor, Profitable Investing Letter, Mar. 27, 2008

AIG "could have huge gains in the second quarter.
-- Bijan Moazami, analyst, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, May 9, 2008

I think this is a case where Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound. They're not in danger of going under I think they are in good shape going forward.
-- Barney Frank (D-Mass.), House Financial Services Committee chairman, July 14, 2008

No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble.
-- Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Mar. 11, 2008

I think you'll see (oil prices at) $150 a barrel by the end of the year
-- T. Boone Pickens, June 20, 2008

In today's regulatory environment, it's virtually impossible to violate rules.
-- Bernard Madoff, money manager, Oct. 20, 2007

"They are obsessed with conservative underwriting...they have no subprime origination."
-G. Kennedy Thompson, CEO of Wachovia, talking about Golden West

"I expect there will be some failures. I don't anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system."
- Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, Feb. 28, 2008

"I think Bob Steel's the one guy I trust to turn this bank around, which is why I've told you on weakness to buy Wachovia."
-Jim Cramer, CNBC commentator, Mar. 11, 2008

"If your time frame is less than 5 years, sell all of your stocks now."-Jim Cramer again Fall 2008 "I expect the market to go up by 33% this year"
- Jim Cramer January 2009, three months after telling everybody to get out.

ENDS

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