Do They Really Believe That?

Am I wrong or does District Attorney McCoy, in one of the TD Waterhouse commercials, say something like in the time it takes to make coffee you can pick a stock, you can do this and TD Waterhouse can help?

Someone at TD Waterhouse actually believes this? Is that really the message that should be sent to people that wonder whether they can manage their own portfolios? How long does it take you to brew up some mud? Five minutes if your really groggy?

I may be over reacting but I think it is an absurd simplification to imply you can learn all you need to know about a stock in a few minutes.

As a side note, all types of stock screeners tend to rely a lot on backward looking data and not enough on forward looking analysis.