There are many types of heroes. Vance Flosenzier, the man who saved his nephew from a shark in Florida in July by wrestling it to shore, is certainly a hero for displaying bravery in a life-threatening situation. Arnold Schwarzenegger played the Last Action Hero in that regrettable 1993 flick. And for me, Bobby Nystrom is the biggest hero of all time since he scored the winning goal for the New York Islanders in Game 6 of the 1980 Stanley Cup play-offs. (Excuse me while I wipe my eyes. The thought of captain Denis Potvin hoisting the Cup over his head always chokes me up.)

Well, I have a new hero: Milton Pollack, a federal judge for the Southern District of New York. A judge as a hero? Yes. The honorable Judge Pollack should be lauded for throwing out a ridiculously frivolous class-action lawsuit against Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and its star Internet analyst Mary Meeker on August 21.

Shareholders of Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY), and AOL Time Warner (NYSE: AOL) were suing because they lost money after listening to Ms. Meeker's Buy recommendations on these stocks. In hindsight, the plaintiffs argued, it's obvious that Ms. Meeker's research had an overly positive bias. Ms. Meeker was bullish because by doing so, the lawsuits claim, Morgan Stanley would have a better chance of winning banking business from these companies and her salary would increase as a result.

ANALYSTS AREN'T TOTALLY OBJECTIVE ... DUH! Stop the presses! Wall Street analysts have conflicts of interest? There is no Chinese wall separating banking and research? Who knew?

Please. This lawsuit and others, such as the one filed against Merrill Lynch and analyst Henry Blodget regarding a bullish call on InfoSpace (Nasdaq: INSP), are patently absurd. (Merrill settled this case for $400,000 in July to avoid litigation. The bank did not admit any wrongdoing.)

Judge Pollack referred to the allegations in the Morgan Stanley lawsuit as "gross and unrestrained." Thank you, Judge Pollack. Any investor with a reasonable amount of knowledge of how Wall Street works should know that you need to take analysts' stock calls with a grain -- no, make that a pillar -- of salt. Big investment banks like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch make most of their money from investment banking -- fees derived from mergers-and-acquisition advisory work as well as underwriting of equity and debt -- not from research.

To expect research analysts at the bulge bracket firms to be completely objective is more than a tad na‹ve. Some analysts have actually been fired for being too critical of companies. Sure, that isn't fair, but it's how the game on Wall Street is played. And it isn't really a big secret.

BITTER INVESTORS PLAY THE BLAME GAME The Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch lawsuits just smack of sour grapes. Investors lost money on richly valued technology stocks, and instead of blaming themselves for making risky bets, they are pointing the finger at Wall Street analysts.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not defending analysts for pumping stocks. But savvy investors should know that it's foolish to buy a stock simply because one analyst, even if she was profiled in a puff piece in The New Yorker in 1999, touted it.

There is a vast wealth of information about publicly traded companies on the Web. Anyone can check out a company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings for free by going to sites like FreeEdgar. Scores of financial news sites (including ours) feature a plethora of statistical information about companies. ("Do you know what a plethora is?" First reader to email me with the name of the movie that quote is from will earn my undying respect and a mention in next week's column.) So there's no excuse for relying solely on analysts' Buy and Sell calls to make investment decisions.

In a perfect world, investment bankers and research analysts would never talk to each other, and analysts would be independent. But that's not going to happen. What's more, analysts are fallible human beings that can make bad judgment calls, conflict of interest or not. So to make them responsible for shareholder losses could set a dangerous precedent. What would be next? Could investors sue a mutual fund manager for buying a stock that tanks? How about short-sellers suing an analyst because they lost money when the stock went up following the analyst's upgrade? Maybe millions of investors should file a class action against Alan Greenspan for waiting too long to cut interest rates. Hey, we could even sue the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange. If it weren't for them, people wouldn't be able to trade stocks in the first place.

It would be nice if Judge Pollack's ruling dissuades class-action attorneys and disgruntled investors from clogging the courts with more lawsuits against investment banks. Considering how much money has been lost in the last year and a half, though, I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully other judges will follow the wise Judge Pollack's lead.

FOCB INDEX WINNERS AND LOSERS Now we come to the part of this column that I dread writing about. Once again, it is my displeasure to inform you that the stocks in the Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU) was the big winner, with a 5.2 percent gain. The struggling telecom equipment provider, hands down New Jersey's greatest source of embarrassment since Joe Piscopo's lamentable Jersey Guy character on Saturday Night Live in the '80s, laid off 2,200 workers on Thursday. But the company said it expects to be profitable again in 2002. I'll believe it when I see it.

In other news involving struggling telecom equipment providers, Redback Networks (Nasdaq: RBAK) finished the week with a 23.4 percent loss, earning it a tie for the week's biggest loser. Redback didn't announce any bad news per se, but investors punished the company after competitor Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN) released an earnings warning. Redback shared the weekly loser honors with Exodus Communications (Nasdaq: EXDS), which also plummeted 23.4 percent. Three Exodus directors made like trees and left, and not even talk of a buyout could help the stock. According to Thomson Financial/First Call, 3 of the 24 analysts following Exodus (why do 24 analysts still cover this company?) rate it a Buy. Maybe someone should sue them.