File this away as the most amusing item of the day. I always get a kick out of some of the investment articles I see on various finance-related web sites. Now, I am sure I have made a few mistakes over the years on this blog, but never anything like what the Forbes Investor Team posted on their site today. In a piece written by John Reese of Validea Capital Management, there are four stock recommendations, including Genentech. Here is what John says about the company:

The South San Francisco-based biotech firm ($100 billion market cap) has averaged a 22.1% ROE over the past three years, has increased EPS in six straight years, and has almost three times as much net current assets as long-term debt. It isn't cheap, selling for almost 30 times trailing 12-month earnings, but my Lynch-based model thinks it's worth it, given its 41.6% long-term growth rate. (I use an average of the three-, four-, and five-year EPS growth rates to determine a long-term rate.) Another reason the strategy is high on Genentech: the firm's conservative financing. It has a debt/equity ratio of less than 20%.

Of course, this is amusing because Genentech was acquired by Roche more than a year ago, in March 2009, and the stock has not traded since. I have to question this manager's "Peter Lynch-based model" given that it flashes buy signals on stocks that do not even exist anymore. Hilarious.