For some reason, I'm recalling the advice of the experts who said back in 2000 that content on the Internet was dead, and that people should invest in those companies that supplied the hardware -- you know, companies like Nortel.

In July of 2000, Nortel peaked out at $124.50 per share and represented 36.5 per cent of the value of the TSE 300 Index -- with the other 299 companies representing the rest (source: CBC.ca).

By late October of 2000, Nortel had begun to hit some trouble. On Oct. 25, the share went from $96 to $71 after then-CEO John Roth issued the first of what was to be many sales warnings. The penthouse stock quickly became the financial equivalent of a basement suite. At one point, it traded for 69 cents per share.

Let's turn our attention to Google, which started in 1998.

By 2000, it was getting noticed. As one example, globeandmail.com had incorporated it as a web search tool in this period.

Google quickly exploded into a search supernova. When it went public in August 2004, its stock was initially offered at US$85 per share.

If you want to buy one share of Google today, it will set you back about US$735.

Nortel is trading at about $17.

It would appear those who thought the money was in Internet hardware were wrong.

OTOH, if investing is all about timing, those who showed faith and bought Nortel at 69 cents would see their investment rise 35-fold as of today.

Google's stock has risen just under nine-fold since the IPO.

But if you had listened to the experts back in 2000 and sunk money into Nortel when it was trading in the $100 range, you would have lost 83 per cent of your investment.

Should the lesson be that one shouldn't listen to experts?

Not necessarily. I would think the issue is more that conventional wisdom is always conventional, but is sometimes less than wise.