I think there will be a better buying opportunity in telecoms going forward.
"When the cost of telecom goes to nothing a lot of interesting things happen and new businesses can be built," says Whitman.
Because Mr. Grubman tried to take much of the glory for the telecom boom -- he was featured on magazine covers and sat alongside telecom executives as they announced big acquisitions -- he became the perfect fall guy when telecom went bust.
The interest groups that eagerly sought the Telecommunications Act of 1996 might have remembered the saying, "Be careful what you wish for". In place of the old regulatory regime, which had ensured that no one in telecom went broke, investors and firms in the industry celebrated the arrival of a system in which many of them would go broke.
In pharmaceuticals, Almanac Investor recommends Pharmaceutical HOLDRS (amex: PPH) and Dow Jones Healthcare iShares (amex: IYH); in consumer issues, buy Consumer SPDRs (amex: XLY) or iShares Dow Jones Consumer Cyclical (amex: IYC) or Non-Cyclical (amex: IYK); in telecom, go for Telecom HOLDRS (amex: TTH) or Telecom iShares (amex: IYZ).
Last week Global Crossing, a telecoms firm, went bust amid claims of dubious accounts.
"I remain singularly unpersuaded that the media business and the telecoms business go together," Mr. Angus said.
The developing world has an opportunity to leapfrog the centralised model, just as it leapfrogged fixed-line telecoms and went straight to mobile phones.But just as the spread of mobile phones was helped along by new business models, such as pre-paid airtime cards and village "telephone ladies", new approaches are now needed.
But regulators are still trying to tot up the overall size of large banks' exposures; whether they took those positions in a way that demonstrated adequate risk management; and whether, if some telecoms companies went belly up, they might threaten the lives of their lenders too.
Between 2010 and 2014, his telecoms company went from loss maker to star stock market performer.
