Here’s the best investing advice you will ever receive, and it’s so simple an advertising executive could have an assistant do it for them. Just follow our name announcements and client acquisition news. When you spot a public company hiring Igor, short that stock! Why? It’s indicative of systemically flawed judgment.

In the past 12 months this would include MTV (Viacom), Hasbro, Dupont, Boston Beer, MGM, Palm, Gap, Hitachi, etc. Full list here.

A little Paul Anka, just to get your week off on a sour note. This was used as Kodak’s song, if you remember. If only we could forget. We thought we had, until Unlawyer was callous enough to dig it up:

Good morning, yesterday
You wake up and time has slipped away
And suddenly it’s hard to find
The memories you left behind
Remember, do you remember?

The laughter and the tears
The shadows of misty yesteryears
The good times and the bad you’ve seen
And all the others in between
Remember, do you remember
The times of your life? (Do you remember?)

Reach out for the joy and the sorrow
Put them away in your mind
The mem’ries are times that you borrow
To spend when you get to tomorrow

Here comes the saddest part (Comes the saddest part)
The seasons are passing one by one
So gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life?

Gather moments while you may
Collect the dreams you dream today
Remember, will you remember
The times of your life?

Of your life
Of your life
Do you remember, baby
Do you remember the times of your life?

Do you remember, baby
Do you remember the times of your life?

Agilent issused a press release today announcing the name of their to-be-spun-off semiconductor testing business as “Verigy”.

The Agilent / Verigy release demonstrates yet another case of reverse engineered rationale, created solely for an internal audience for the purpose of buy-in and sign-off on the name:

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan. 12, 2006–Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today announced it has selected a name for its upcoming semiconductor test spin-off company. The new name, Verigy, will be used when the new company separates from Agilent, which is expected to occur near mid-2006.

The name is built from the Latin prefix “veri-” (”true, genuine”), which is the root of “verification” (”to prove the truth of, substantiate”) and so ties the name to the test business. The “-gy” suffix comes from the combining form “-logy,” meaning the name of sciences or bodies of knowledge, as in biology and geology. Verigy describes a company dealing with the true nature of things. The sound of the name connotes energy.

Now that you’ve been schooled by Agilent in what Verigy communicates, will you ever forget? Of course you will, because it communicates nothing.