I watch a lot of stock market television. Aside from catching news I like to hear process from other people. Unfortunately some of the people conducting the interviews don't know what to ask.

Yesterday right before the close Maria interviewed Alex Motola who manages the Thornburg Core Growth Fund (THCGX). The fund is a bottom up growth fund that is up almost 20% on the year. The fund only owns 40 stocks so clearly the guy is good at picking stocks. As a note just because I am top down does not mean I can not learn from a bottom up guy and at some point in the top down process, stocks do have to be chosen.

Motola mentioned that he likes Microsoft now. He cited a couple of reasons why and while they make sense who knows whether he will be right but that is not the point. The point to me is that despite the market already knowing about the new OS and so on he still likes it. Process not product. OK, good stuff.

After mentioning Microsoft, Maria's first question was about the stock having done nothing in 5 years. First the comment plays into a mistake too many people make. Often, investors care more where a stock has been than where it is going. If a stock has doubled, you buy and it then triples, who cares that it doubled before you bought it?

As Maria was saying it hasn't done anything they put up a chart that showed a nice lift over the last month or so. He said he bought it recently which Maria did not respond to. Actually since October 11 MSFT is up just under 14%. That is a big move any way you cut it.

With all those years being at the NYSE, as a reporter, I am really surprised she cannot come up with better questions.