Dear Mr. Berko:

Some months ago, you stupidly recommended Abercrombie & Fitch Co. when it was trading at $29, and now it’s $26. I’d like to know how you could make such an obviously stupid and ridiculous selection.

The market has risen more than 18 percent so far this year and that choice of yours has fallen almost 20 percent since I bought it. Either someone gave you a snow job or you and the chief executive officer are in cahoots, or you’re just a jackass and jerk who is trying to pull a stock out of a hat.

What kind of research do you use anyway? Even the worst analysts on Wall Street give better advice than you. I know you won’t print this letter, and even if you do, I’d still sign my name.

C.D., Wilmington, N.C.

Dear C.D.:

I’m really sorry that I disappointed you on that Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF-$24.92) recommendation. Every once in a while, when something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it “ain’t” a duck. And that was one of those “once-in-a-whiles.”

However, your question about what research I use is a fair request, and I believe that you as well as other readers have a right to know. Most of the published information sources I use can be found in your public library or somewhere on your computer.

I read the corporate Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which are posted on the Internet. Those reports are tedious, dry, boring and written in a verbose, jejune and insipid legalese. But after five or six years of trudging through the ponderous palaver and monotony, you finally get the hang of it. Because I know now what I’m looking at, what used to take me several hours requires about 10 minutes.

I also use Standard & Poor’s. The S&P data is clean, factual and accurate. It presents information from which you must draw your conclusions and has zero personality. I also use Value Line, which I think has the best-organized presentation, the most useful data and its various reports are written with a little bit of style.

I always visit the company’s Web site, which gives me some insight into the company’s history and personality. Sadly, some prominent companies have terribly sophomoric Web sites.

I check Yahoo! Finance, which provides me with key comparison statistics, a message board and company news releases. I use Moody’s Investors Service, which is dry as dust and appeals to the more cerebral investor. However, its analyses are well-conceived and often solidly on target. Unfortunately, they’re so boring that I can’t wait to put them down.

I often try to find someone who knows somebody at the company I’m researching. I will ask that someone if he or she can introduce me to a mid-level employee. Every once in a while I get to talk to a chief executive, but I really prefer someone in marketing because marketing people seem to know a lot more about their company than the C-level executives.

My Rolodex also has the names of a few low-profile elected Washington officials, a small bevy of bureaucrats, some non-prominent economists at two universities and several unremarkable portfolio managers.

I do not use research reports when writing about a company because I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s conclusions. However, I often review Wall Street research after I have completed an article. It’s a perverse ego trip to find that an analyst who earns millions of dollars a year disagrees with my conclusions.

My analyses and conclusions are not as profound, weighty, lengthy or glitzy as those prepared and packaged by the ivory -ower titans of Wall Street. My stuff is not written for the investor who has a Wharton M.B.A., the pro who manages a multibillion-dollar mutual fund or the acquisition committee of a blue-chip company.

Those columns you read are written for the people who read your newspaper; sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes with a little humor and sometimes with a little sarcasm.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@adelphia.net.