They're piling on the bear bandwagon... People that usually don't understand the economy were one of the first ones to tell me about LEH and BAC/MER news today and yesterday. The bottom has to be near....... at least a short term bottom.
The bottom happens when ALL the average joes start talking about how bad the economy is. Just like they were all buying homes in 2006, buying gold at 1000 per ounce, buying oil at 140+ per barrel and putting all their dollars into euros at 1.60 to the euro.
I got several calls on this.......but when asked what they have done they say nothing.... now, when they call you crying and puking and pleading as to what measures they can take to sue their broker, oreder execution software company, back office personel, anyoneeeeeeeeeeee..then is when the bottom is here... ;o)
Hedgefunds are sitting @ near record cash levels... Now its Average Joe's turn. He needs to sell out to fulfil the prophecy. All that's next is Cramer saying now's the time to sell your losers like he did in winter 2002. Then we can get a nice 300% bounce in financials.
I'm only going to tell you guys one more time: The bottom isn't in until an 80 year old bag you've never seen before kicks you as hard as she can squarely in the balls for no other reason than she overheard your conversation whereby you referenced the 'stock market.'
Last night, a friend of mine who never talk about Wall Street and had been refusing to get onto the subject told me about Lehman Brothers troubled. While another friend who has been talking a lot about the subject was quiet.
All of you guys who think like this are so full of shit and destined to learn that the hard way. "The crowd is always wrong", and "I'm buying coz there is blood on the streets". Guess what, the crowd can push things a long ways. By late 1998 "everyone" knew they could make a ton of money trading tech stocks, guess what, they could and they did for about a year and a half. By 2003 "everyone" knew buying a condo on spec in Florida was easy money, and it was being talked about. Those people buying second homes and spec homes pushed the prices up about 20/25% a year for 3 more years. In the end the market will take the most amount of money from the most people, its how it works..but, in the short to intermediate term when the crowd finally catches on its suicide to think your the smartest idiot in the village.