If the government can claim, with a straight face, that the nation lost 250,000 jobs, and that this is positive news, when 400,000 people had their unemployment insurance benefits run out, and therefore are no longer considered unemployed, even though they are in the real world, and the stock market rallies, then the manure business is going to be a boom industry. On top of this, P/E ratios are nosebleed high, the real economy continues to worsen at a breakneck pace, state governments are slashing workforces and/or raising taxes/fees, etc., real property values continue to decline, the number of unemployed Americans is at an all time record (and growing), the U.S. Government is running into fundamental resistance in trying to float the debt they need to be purchased to finance their record deficit spending, and corporate insiders sold a billion dollars of their company shares while purchases were in the 10 mm dollar range in the last month. Yep, the manure business is where it's at. I might even diversify, and use that manure to start a string of greenhouse operations where I can grow me some of them 'green shoots.' When the truth is unavoidable, despite the horseshit the government is spinning, there will be a very loud, ground shaking, crash taking place.
Permabears....will they ever learn? 1. Even if you look at U6 data it shows improvement. Calculate the unemployment rate any way you want (consistently over the past year) and you will see that the trend is positive. 2. P/E's mean absolutely nothing in this market because nobody knows what earnings will be! Were you not paying attention to last quarter's earnings? Companies shattered expectations because nobody can accurately predict earnings in this economic climate.
and those expectations were finally and artificially low to make things look good. Not the pie in the sky out of control numbers that used to be there that helped get us into all of this mess. When you're bouncing off of the bottoms, there's only one way to go for a while: up. The "trend" right now may be positive, but the overall trend longer-term is still way down...
I agree that earnings' expectations were set low enough so that they could report many 'beats.' That's just one of the ways they rig the table game. And I love the projections that the alleged trend down in job losses is just assumed to continue, and that any re-acceleration is apparently out of the question now (when it's not only possible, but probable, if you actually count the number of people falling off government unemployment insurance rolls).
So all of the Wall Street analysts, market pundints, and company CEO's/CFO's etc. all collaborated to make estimates artificially low in order to make things look good? I don't think so. In reality, those estimates were so low because everyone thought the economy would be worse off than actual reality. But if you would rather buy into the whole government/data lies and manipulation theory, then be my guest.
How can you say earnings expectations were "set low" enough so that they report beats? Consensus estimates are just that...consensus. As stated in my previous post, how does one get all of the analysts, company's etc. etc. to collaborate and artificially lower estimates? The unemployment trend theory has one flaw...and you nailed it. If job losses re-accelerate, then the economy could very well be much worse off. The other catch is if the currently unemployed people NEVER find work again (unlikely). But this is not what we are seeing at the moment. Since this is not what is actually happening right now (could happen in the future but nobody knows), why believe in hypotheticals? I base my opinions on the facts in front of me.
... will BuyLo ever learn? Sure there will be pullbacks but we're in a bull market and that's the one piece of "information" you can't seem to accept. You've been so wrong, for so long.. just because you had one lucky, *cough* good call on the initial drop doesn't mean you have to be wrong so many times thereafter.
You've come to the right place. There are many entremanures on this site and an equal number of those with only delusions of manure.