destruction is many times easier and takes place much faster than development the cost of destruction is much lower and less energy is required to destroy something than to develop the market can move downwards at a greater velocity than it can move upwards movies & media have been constantly injecting thoughts of doomsday for years now ... one would wonder why? ... same with religion all the above could be a reason for why some people tend to be a bear http://www.hammeruncut.com/realtime-death-toll-counter/
Calling it is an ego thing. The trading thing (IMHego'sO) is to wait for lower highs etc and trade down from there. Look back at 29, 87 etc ... one is better off trading the trend one is seeing rather than a predicted change of trend.
================ Good call kiwi, hope this doesnt inflate your ego. Everyone isnt bearish on ET, many are; & good [all data] historical reasons to be bearish or flat eod on QQQQ Personaly, pay more attention to moving averages/price/50 dma than permabears; or permabulls
As a trader, you have to take a step back and realize the big picture. Bearishness has contributed to every bull market. Its when the bearishness became absent when the markets finally retreated. There are many explanations as to why bearishness is healthy for a bull market. However, for our purposes, we just need to know that a certain amount of bearishness is healthy. I measure bearishness mainly through the ISEE sentiment index and the 10 day moving average CBOE put/call ratios. Secondly, I use the AIAA #s and other such polls of investors/newsletter writers. I place the main weight on the put/call ratios and ISEE sentiment index. That is because the people who participated in the polls may not be running money in the market. The people who buy put/calls are the true people to pay attention to. The challenge to trading and investing is to buy when there is blood in the street. In the summer of 2006, there was a Goldman Sachs spokesman who came on CNBC telling everyone that this selling could go on for a while and who knows when it will end. That is a very hard time to inject money in the market when a spokesman from a leading brokerage is making statements like that. This is why I embrace technical analysis. It is because technical analysis is emotionless. I have lost a lot of opportunities by following the crowd. I say to look at the chart and use the old-fashioned methods that you find in the basic technical analysis books and on stockcharts.com. Keep it simple and leave emotion out of the equation.
If it takes someone as "smart" as you to conclude that in order seem more intelligent, people are bearish about the markets, rather than that people are bearish about the market because of their intelligence...then I'd say yes, you set the bar quite low and probably didn't understand what I just wrote. Keep on keeping on there bumbles.