TGM said:
It will never happen. Right now the market has bottomed. The "plunge prevention team" had the bullet bid in the spoo and spiders all day. The fed is buying GET LONG. Now I may sound nuts and I was trading in the CME and Cbot long enough to be nuts. But let me tell ya---having a upside bias in stocks and believing in conspiracy theories just plain works!!
Believe in Conspiracies ----they can make you wealthy. Esp. when Alan Greenspan puts the word out for everyone to start buying for the 00 accounts (it always starts with Anita from Goldman doing her 50 lot jig).
I'm neither a bull nor a bear - just a realist - quite happy to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds if there's a turn to be made.
I'm quite a fan of the 'plunge prevention team' muself though. With an election looming, it's pretty damned obvious they will be beavering away at their brief right now. Like you say - it can pay to believe in conspiracy theories. But they're going to have their work cut out in anything other than the short term.
Fact is the fundamentals are heavily weighted against the bulls on anything longer than a 2-3 month view right now. Never mind the astonomical twin deficits or the historically overvalued stock market etc etc, Just have a look at what US insiders are doing with their equities - their actions speak volumes. This from Jay Taylor at
http://www.howestreet.com/story.php?ArticleId=585&PHPSESSID=211431c51e1eac000e3c772194d31968
"Wave after wave after wave of insider selling and almost no insider buying is the pattern we see day after day as reported in The Wall Street Journal. CNBC won’t talk about it, but The Wall Street Journal publishes statistics provided by Thomson Financial. What the Journal publishes are the top ten insider buyers and top ten insider sellers each day. And then once per week they provide a summary for the week of the top ten sellers and top ten buyers.
For the last week in July, among the top ten, there was $143.6 million of insider sales vs. $35.6 million of insider purchases. However, the sales to purchases are much more lopsided than this, judging by the daily statistics because the cumulative magnitude of sellers to buyers is masked by picking only the top ten largest in both categories. For example, in reviewing the numbers for August 2, 2004, I see a total of $93.6 million of insider sales among the top ten sellers and only $1.6 million of insider buyers among the top ten buyers. That amounts to $58 sold for every dollar purchased. On a daily basis the ratios are from a low of around $10 sold for every $1 purchased, to a high of closer to $100 to $1."
Mugs in - insiders out - it was ever thus. ( Canny traders excepted of course who generally shouldn't give a damn either way).
As for bullish articles outnumbering bearish by 2-3 to 1. When was it ever any different? Name me a broker who does not make wads more money in a bull than a bear market. They are the barkers and cheerleaders of a largely discredited buy and hold investment industry. It is their people who pump out all that 'jam tomorrow' garbage day after day. what do you expect?
I'm not barking or cheering for either view, but when a 3-1+ majority are calling a bull market, it seems to me its near time to run for cover - looks a bit like p***ing into the wind to me.