yea I saw that in an article yesterday.. http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/8044707/c_8044815?f=home_todayinfinance notice that the CFO and Small Business Owner confidences are also pessimistic..Which is why I question: 1) why is the stock market a good by at all time highs.? as we are in a time when Accouting profits are reported as very good. 2) why are companies taking these profits and buying their own stock back..it would seem logical to me (I am not a big shot CEO) that if you are pessimistic about your industry's business.conditions .and the stock market is at an all time high..maybe spending billions of dollars to buy back your stock isn't smart...(although I am not a Wall street genius)...unless... a.) you as the CEO can use these enormous accounting profits to buy shares of your stock .. while you simultaneously sell them in your personal account...(nice perque) b.) keeping the stock market propped up before a big election that may change a lot of things,which may affect your own personal wealth, so that people may be more likely to think the economy and business conditions are good so the status quo will be safe... Is this just another example of the greedy " Fokk them . as long as I get mine attitude" that is so pervasive in America...and why a lot of people are a little concerned about what is Happening...??
There was a post by Restricted in another thread where he referenced the following article by Bernie Schaeffer: http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index.php?a=11413. Check it out. IMHO, gone are the days where the fundamentals determined stock prices.
" IMHO, gone are the days where the fundamentals determined stock prices." ..hmmm..I remember a time not to long ago when this happened...Sep1998 - sep 2001....and A huge rally did occur..and valuations got ridiculous..and then people tried to ratioanlize thses prices with spin on the fundamentals..of course this didn't end well for many...liquidity ....maybe we need to keep raisiing rates and tightening credit to keep this market from exploding up and transferring the delfating housing bubble back into another stock market..bubble..dow 24,000 by 2008....ye haw... I think maybe 100 years from now History books will reference our times when they discuss .Historical Asset Bubbles ....
What I meant is that there are way too many variables affecting stock prices - supply/demand, liquidity, derivatives activity, elections, bubble, fundamentals, media etc etc... ... and fundamentals is only one of them. Hope this clarifies.
The dudeoflife is RIGHT.... "gone are the days where the fundamentals determined stock prices" if thats your attitude you better be carefull. This sucked in many people back in the late 1990's...Some made alot but MOST lost it ALL...