Bullish and Bearish Bellwethers [Note to Readers: in the wake of GameStop’s Reddit-fueled roller coaster ride, the post below is getting renewed attention. To would-be market timers, though, here’s a heads up: the post appeared almost 5 years ago, when the Nasdaq — which contains many high-flying tech stocks — closed at 4,476. Its close...Read More
In the long run we are all dead.” –Economist John Maynard Keynes. With the Dow Jones Industrial Average** on the cusp of 30,000 — in the middle of a raging pandemic(!) and teetering economy, no less — it’s not long till prognosticators turn their sights to the next milestone. Most likely target: 36,000. Lest...Read More
Retail Investors, Loss Aversion, and The Fear of Missing Out (“FOMO”) Being a good contrarian, let me toss this one out there: skyrocketing stocks may go higher yet from here. In fact, I see two factors fueling further gains, at least in the short run: One. “The Headline Factor” & (some) retail investors’ Fear of...Read More
Bullish and Bearish Bellwethers Just before the 1929 crash, Joseph Kennedy (father of President John F.) was supposed to have dumped all his stocks because a Wall Street shoeshine boy started giving him stock tips. Kennedy reasoned that, if even shoeshine boys were playing the market, there was no remaining, untapped demand to support stock...Read More
Updating Mark Twain “OCTOBER: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November.” –Mark Twain I have my own version of Twain’s observation about the stock market — as well as a prediction about next year’s stock market action. January: stocks soar. February: ...Read More
Stock Market Non-Predictions, Over-Predictions, and Other Tricks of the Trade “Predictions are hard, especially about the future.” –Yogi Berra Apparently, there are two ways to be beat a polygraph (lie detector) test: 1) be a truly “cool cucumber,” who is absolutely non-reactive to every conceivable question; or 2) wildly overreact to every question, so that...Read More
