For disclosure, I recently went long, too. Not because I see anything close to a long-term bullish trend yet, though. It's just that these situations--five straight down days, S&P 20% below its 200-day MA; extreme VIX+put-calls, etc. usually spark some type of bear market rally. I only "pick bottoms" when things line up with the worst conditions of previous bear markets...just before short-to-mide term rallies occur. This time it's really testing my resolve. Getting excited about Internet traffic is hardly an argument for fundamentals, though. Hey, maybe 20% more people are browsing the mall....is that bullish if store sales are down? Maybe people are surfing more due to high unemployment levels and/or not enough to do at their day job...is that bullish? Oh, and if taxpayers paying for this bailout is no big deal, go ahead and put me on your tab!
No, I think he said we were in a "bullear" market. Then he can revise history later when it is convenient.
Wikipedia, Google, Youtube, myspace, facebook, slide.com, paypal, rockyou, twitter, mint.com, and other smartist internet companies are thriving and seeing record traffic and revenue. Apple just announced they sold 10M Iphones, beating their target. So much for the consumer being 'maxed out'. I am aware that certain parts of the economy such as financial, housing, auto are suffering but many other sectors such as internet, energy, tech are thriving. It's just that the non-financial crisis is dragging down the strongest sectors. Wikipedia editors, for example, are still working in full force. Nothing changed for them. Same for facebook and myspace users. Millions of people still maxing out credit cards and using web 2.0/social networking technologies. Low unemployment means that Americans will have plenty of income to spend. Credit card companies, nor the govt. are restricting Americans ability to accumulate debt, nor are the consumer banks denying people personal and or small business loans. So much for a 'credit crisis'. The fact that Americans can continuously max out their credit cards and apply for loans is proof there is no crisis at all, except for a media generated one. The reason why this is possible is because unemployment is low and wages are rising. This is key to the underlying strength of the US economy. All these anti-free trade, anti free market boo hoo hoo losers crying over nothing.
Try South Florida.Every company I deal with has layofs. People are still in resteraunts because it's still one of the few things they can afford. Didn,t Apple stock take a big loss? I don't follow individual stocks, just the mini indexes. I see no plusses there. Lucky if Dow is at mid 10,000-11,000 by year end.
What I don't get is I am still getting credit card offers every day in the mail. I have 50K in credit on cards alone and none of my limits have been been lowered. If the banks are hurting they sure don't act like it. My wife financed a new Infinity G37 last week at 0.9% interest for 5 years. I hear about all the dried up credit but I sure don't see it anywhere. Paul
I've been bearish since the dow 14,000 last yer, and I have not changed my stance, either. The entire concept of "stocks go up over long haul" needs to be questioned.
The dividend yield on the S&P is around 2% and dropping. So, over the last 10 years, you got 2% return and a lot of risk. If that's not convincing, here is another chart reflecting the sorry state of affairs: