WOLCOTT ON THE WEB

With every financial magazine slapping n instant Internet billionaire on the cover (old model of wealth accumulation: Scrooge McDuck piling gold coins; new model: day traders darting in and out of Yahoo! with fighter-pilot precision), optimism has become mandatory in the mainstream media. Derided and effectively muzzled, badnews bears have retreated into the woods or been driven underground, licking their wounds and issuing warnings that deserve to be heard if not heeded. Why? Because a bull market masks a multitude of ills which surface only when the bull runs out of gas, and bears help keep the game honest. At Silicon Investor (siliconinvestor.com), William A. Fleckenstein dashes off a nightly commentary on the day's market action called "The Contrarian," where he heckles consensus opinion and hubris. A short-seller and money manager, Fleckenstein was once teased on CNBC for having "Michael Landon hair"; he in turn refers to CNBC and other financial channels as "bubblevision," filling the speculative bubble with hours of happy talk, and rails against "dead fish" analysts who tout tech stocks no matter how bogus their prospects. He's an entertaining counterpuncher on the day's events. Taking a more Olympian overview is David Tice, manager of the Prudent Bear Fund (prudentbear.com). Another shorter of stocks, he publishes an analysis of market action after the close on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. His reports are grave and portentous, yet possess the powerful immediacy of tragedy unfolding. Below the froth, he spies the fundamental cracks—the trade deficit, the explosion in debt and derivatives, the euphoric disregard of risk—and, backing up his arguments with statistics, he points a trembling finger of woe.

Under construction for a spring opening is an ambitious refuge for contrarians and other endangered species, Grantslnvestor.com, the Grant in the title being James Grant, the string-bean editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer and the first inductee into the bears' Hall of Fame (according to John Rothchild's The Bear Book). His new joint promises to class up the world of financial Web sites and raise the level of discourse several eyebrow notches.

One investment whiz who doesn't want anyone raining on her parade is Barbra Streisand, whose official site (barbrastreisand.com) informs us that as of August 1999, the return on her personal portfolio was more than double that of the S&P 500. This item appeared in "Truth Alert!," a quick-response section which allows Barbra or one of her hired popguns to correct the errors and fabrications of the press. This personal shrine isn't the most expansive in the world, but it transmits a loving vibe from the glassy surface of Babs's narcissism that makes you want to cuddle up in cashmere, vote Democratic, and get a manicure in front of a soft-focus lens. Her site also announces efforts to sell concert merchandise, for those fans who don't own nearly enough crap.

If you work in an office, firing the occasional rubber band over the top of your cubicle at targets unknown, you probably won't want Big Brother being wise to your logging on to certain furball sites, like jewhoo.com, which keeps tabs on who's Jewish in the public arena. Type in a name, hit search, and, lo and behold, one's curiosity is satisfied, although the information is often scanty. (The entry on Paul Newman, for example, fails to mention that Newman was raised as a Christian Scientist.) The site also features a Jerusalem Wall Cam and asks the rude question "Do the Jews run Hollywood?" (The question is answered by Ben Stein. Never mind him, let's ask Barbra!) Those suffering from midafternoon malaise may be tempted to enter mymiserablelife.com, which sounds like a Linus blanket for sad-sack comic Richard Lewis but is in fact more of a Jerry Springer roundup of sick puppies. Everyone testifying on this board seems to have a sexually transmitted rash, a drug habit, and a car that won't start, -JAMES WOLCOTT

JAMES WOLCOTT