It was Monday. I could tell from the blurring in my head and pounding of my eyes. Too many nips on the ol' flask the night before. It was not a small flask, but I'm not a small guy.

When you're on the trail of a man like I.M. Pulse you gotta stay close, ready to pounce in an instant. Unfortunately, that meant hiding out in bushes beside his house rather than in the comfort of my old De Soto. And it had been cold the previous night. Frosty. Just me and Jim Beam in the oleander, shivering and watching...

My name is Diamond. Ace Diamond. I'm a gumshoe. A shamus. A private eye. For the past three days I'd been watching one I.M. Pulse on his wife's dime, the lovely Mrs. R.E. Pulse. Seemed her husband had a problem. Took his name just a little too seriously. You know the kind I'm talking about--the type of guy who does half his shopping while standing in the check-out line at the Five and Dime. Twitchy.

As Mrs. Pulse explained: "Ever since he's been getting it, we've been losing money hand over fist."

"It." We weren't sure exactly what "it" was -- the cause of all the trouble. We knew it was a magazine, but we didn't know what kind of a magazine, and why it had such a powerful effect on him. He hid it from her, the way an adolescent boy hides forbidden pictures beneath his dresser. The missus suspected the worst.

I lit up a cigarette.

All she really knew was that once a month, when the magazine showed up, the money started flying out the door. What magazine was it? I was about to find out.

I heard a noise behind me and whirled around, crouching. My nerves were on fire. No, that was my pants leg. I watched as a hole burned through the cheap wool from the cigarette falling out of my mouth as I crouched and whirled. I'm not very good at crouching and whirling.

It was him -- the drop, the delivery boy -- the mailman. He reached in his bag and pulled out Pulse's fistful of mail. HE HAD IT! Before the mailman could slide it through the slot, Pulse yanked opened the door. "Oh goody! It's here!" he exclaimed. "It's about time!" He had a dazed and daffy look on his mug. I tried to lunge from the bushes to grab it, but tripped over a sprinkler head. Pulse took it and slammed the door.

When the mailman left I ran around back and peeked in the kitchen window. There was I.M. Pulse, grinning like an idiot as he cracked its cover. I read the title as he flipped back the page: "GREAT BIG GOBS OF MONEY!" it read. "The Magazine for Delirious Investors."

I watched as Pulse read the first article... and as he reached for his phone. That didn't take long. I heard him giggling, "Oh my, yes! I must have some of THAT stock! If Mr. Goo Ruse says it's good, by golly, it's good enough for me! After all, he's the expert"

I screamed for him to stop. He either didn't hear me or he was too wrapped up in dreams of financial windfall to pay attention. I tapped hard on the window. Again, nothing. The call was going through. I.M. Pulse was determined to make a buy right now and that was that.

Just then I heard another noise behind me. I crouched and whirled again. I twisted my ankle and banged my knee on the wall.

"You okay?" asked the little fella standing over me. He was dressed...oddly. A colorful costume. A hat with lots of floppy....points. And shoot me in the head if those points didn't have little bells on them. "What's with the hat?" I asked.

"I'm a Fool," he said, smiling. "I'm here to help!"

"I could use some," I said.

"Be right back!" he said. He entered the house without knocking, catching I.M Pulse by surprise.

"Who...who are you?" Pulse said, nervous.

"Put down that phone!" commanded Pointy Hat. Pulse did as he was told. "Very good," said the Fool, much more gently. "My name is Motley. I'm a Fool. And you're about to make a terrible mistake by buying a stock recommended in that magazine!"

"But...but...look here!" said Pulse. "Mr. Goo Ruse, who writes the column at the beginning of every issue, recommends it VERY highly. He's got all the numbers here. EPS, revenue, profit margins, inventory...everything looks good to me! He's expecting it to go up by at least 50% over the next couple of months! And he's got such a trustworthy face. Just look at the picture on top of the page."

"I don't need to," said Motley. "That photo is just the mortal guise of..."

With a grand, Elizabethan flourish, Motley whipped out a can of Motley Fool Morphing Spray and squirted the picture. Within seconds the trustworthy young face of Mr. Goo Ruse dissolved...and in its place I saw the most hideously evil, ugly mug I'd ever seen.

"....Dr. Mortimer Stocktout!" Motley exclaimed triumphantly.

"I still don't understand," Pulse said. "I've studied the numbers and the stock still looks good to me!"

Motley shook his head. I shook my head. We both shook our heads--my eyes pounding even worse now with the constant jingling from Motley's jester cap as it shook. In fact, it was making me insane. "Make it stop!" I cried.

*Can you help us? Can you tell us why, exactly, the I.M. Pulse buy is going to be a big mistake....and make Motley's hat be quiet before my head explodes?*

1) Because Dr. Stocktout was always wrong?

2) Because Pulse hadn't done enough homework?

3) Because the numbers in the story might have been wrong?

4) Because the information wasn't timely?

And the answer is....#4!

If you answered two, you're close. Pulse hadn't done enough research to make an informed stock purchase, but he DID say the numbers were in the article. The numbers may well have been right....at the time the story was printed.

What Pulse didn't factor in--what so many impulse stock buyers don't factor in--is that no matter how right the numbers are in a magazine article, no matter how attractive the stock looks at first glance, the fact is that the story was WRITTEN anywhere from one to three MONTHS before the issue ever hit the newsstand.

Three months is an entire fiscal quarter. It's a yearly quarter, too, for that matter. A lot can change with a company in a quarter.

Motley patiently explained all this to I.M. Pulse, who was suddenly ashamed.

"Don't be ashamed!" said Motley. "It's a common beginner's mistake. But in this day and age of instant communication and inexpensive online services, there's really no excuse for not doing just a bit more research and getting a company's CURRENT numbers with which to do it! That stock may well be a good buy...then again, it may only have been a good buy when the article was written.

"But it may not be one now..."

With a glinting smile at Pulse and wave of his hand at me, Motley vanished into thin air. Good thing, too. That jingling was giving me hives. But for some reason my ankle didn't hurt anymore....

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