The following appeared in a newsletter offering advice to investors."Over 80 percent of the respondents to a recent survey indicated a desire to reduce their intake of foods containing fats and cholesterol, and today low-fat products abound in many food s

In the text above, the author due to the increasing demand on low-fat products, indicated by a survey, proposes the need for Old Dairy Industries, which are brands for high in fat and cholesterol products to start selling their stocks, in order to avoid the inevitable money loss. However, in order to determine if this proposition would be effective, several pieces of additional information would be needed.

First of all, it is necessary to ask the author to elucidate some ambiguous points in the survey and provide some more detailed analysis. To be more precise, the text maintains that 80 percent of the respondents were willing to reduce their intake in high fat and cholesterol products, but it does not clarify their quotidian consumption and in what percent they are going to reduce their intake. There is a high possibility that they were buying great amounts of high fat products and as a result they wanted to decline their consumption by only 5 percent. However, 5 percent reduction does not mean lower profits for the companies producing high fat products.

Secondly, another question that needs to be raised regarding the survey is how many people were asked and whether one can draw a clear conclusion only by their opinions. More specifically, if in this survey participated 100 people, where 80 of those were willing to decrease their consumption in high fat products, then generalizing the tendency of 80 people out of 100 and drawing such a radical conclusion, such as selling a company's shares, would not be wise. Moreover, the author needs to ask the age of those people. For instance, young people from the ages of 20-30 do not concern themselves with such issues, but older people from the ages of 40-60 care about them. Thus, if the people in the survey were in the range of 40-60 years old, then they would prefer to reduce purchasing high-fat products.

Finally, Perhaps the most important question that needs to be asked is whether low fat products are also profitable. In the text, the author citing the abundance of low fat products in the market, concludes the decline in demand on high fat products. However, we do not know whether low fat products are profitable. Their demand could not be the only reason for their abundance in stores. Another reason can be that they can be produced cheaper and easier that the high fat products, thus more companies can create them.

Concluding, there are many questions that need to be answered by the author in order to assure the reliability of his statement. However, his current position and arguments give rise to a series of unstated assumptions making them invalid and the conclusion incorrect.