Why following the stock investment recommendations on television and print media is a bad idea ?

This is a simple truth, not recognized by 90% of investors. I will take the risk of oversimplification to explain this logic; but the logic remains valid in more complex scenarios as well...

Let's assume we have a (hypothetical!) great analyst who can predict with 100% accuracy and has a large following. The moment a prediction comes out, there would be large number of buyers and few sellers, immediately leading to overpricing.

The reverse is also true. A sell recommendation will lead to large number of sellers in the market immediately leading to price crash.

So in this situation an average investor will always buy high and sell low, leading to losses. The only solution is to be able to make the recommendation ahead of others which means not following the analyst.

So in this market, the only way to win is to play with few elite / informed players (I wouldn't call them investors), who can outguess the public opinion...