...we're still up on the quarter.The S&P 500 got as high as 845 during the day on April 2 so since then it is down 3.5% but maybe it feels like more because of the size of the drop yesterday and the intraday decline that it partially retraced on Monday.
Obviously in a bear market rally of some length it cannot go up literally everyday. I have no idea if the bear market rally is over or not but the last few days serves as a good microcosm for the last few months.
A while back I started using the term stumble along the bottom (did not come up with the term, forget who did so if you know please leave a comment). To me this term means continued volatility, continued discomfort and no meaningful progress out of the trading range. I have been expecting a couple of more temporary deviations outside the general trading range than we have had thus far but the action has had a predictable impact on psychology.
The bear market is now 18 months old and investors do not feel like they have a lot of answers and there is little visibility at this point for the recovery. At some point we probably started grinding down of psyches perhaps in a similar manner to what we went through from November 2002-March 2003. That is not to say this phase will only last five months because it has been a little longer than five months now and doesn't feel like it is over yet.
One thing that seems to have come from the action thus far is less "certainty" that the market is going to 500 or 600. I was never in that camp, obviously with the move to 666 we got close to 600 but we did spend very little time below 700. My hunch is that it would take a different type of news (and I don't really know what that would be) to take the market that much lower. I would qualify that by saying that is simply an opinion, I remain defensively positioned which makes the need to be right about not going meaningfully lower very unimportant.
Well the Red Sox got off to a good start beating the Rays 5-3. Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek each hit home runs and their pitching was pretty solid save for Hideki Okajima. Johnny Pesky, pictured above was at the game, he works for the team in some sort of coaching role, he is 89 years old and ran on to the field like a healthy 60 year old when we was introduced.
3 comments:
I invented the term "Stumble along the Bottom". But you may use it.
A. Gore
Predicting where the market will bottom out is the best recipe to look like a fool. I am not picking on you - even though I believe you original picked a bottom of 990 or so.
Coincidentital, I made my first re-entry into the market at the end of September of last year when the market was around this level. Down almost 30% from its high - time will tell if I was a fool.
But my point is, prediction seems to be the mark of a fool regardless of the number predicted and regardless of whether they get it right or not.
The beginning of baseball always has perked up the spring. Most folks probably have their favorite team (and years). For me, it was the go-go White Sox of 1959. My father somehow was able to pay for tickets for the first game of the World Series v. the Dodgers at Comiskey Park. We sat in the second row, left field bleachers near the foul pole. The cigar and cigarette smoke billowed in clouds as whiffs of hot dogs, beer and popcorn filled the air. Al Smith, the Sox left fielder gave our section a smile and a big wave as we encouraged the Sox...GO, GO!!
Seeing Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio do their magic will always be a movie in my mind. They were idols.
T
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