Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Darkest Before The Dawn

I got this list from Barry Ritholtz's most excellent blog (http://bigpicture.typepad.com) .

The news is certainly as grim as ever:

Wachovia writes down $23.9. billion
Grim Earnings Weigh on Stocks
First Birthday for the Recession?
Kerkorian’s Ford Exit Sparks Fear of Failures at Big Three
California Home Sales Revive With Intense Pain
CDO Cuts Show $1 Trillion Corporate-Debt Bets Toxic

Mervyn King warns of Britain's 'long march' out of recession

What strikes me is that bear markets end when the news is seemingly at its worst because the market is a forward looking beast. It went down precisely because all of this news was coming.

No, it did not predict any individual bit of news but it knows when things look bad. Our job as market analysts is to read those signs of "bad" and get on the right side of the market. I don't know how long or how far. All I know is "be bearish" or "be bullish" or "be a spectator."

2 comments:

Doug said...

it's about time, here it is friday morning 7:20am and the futures are as much in the toilet as ever, finally getting our selling climax of the the last bit of cowards and panic stricken people who are long?i sure hope so, i've been long for a while and waiting for this market to crap or get off the pot, looks like its finally craping, hooray, hooray.

Michael Kahn said...

Other than the hooray part, I have to agree with you. Watch the VIX top 100 today.