February 2011

I stuck my neck out here yesterday, calling the top of a bear rally that for two years has kept the nation from facing economic reality. Here is what I wrote: “Stocks fell not because of fears over the spread of violence in the Middle East, as the pundits asserted, but because it was time for the Mother of All Bear Rallies, now almost two years old, to keel over and die.”  Of course, one can never be absolutely certain about such things, and that’s why I struggled briefly with the temptation to rephrase that sentence as follows:  “Stocks fell not because of fears over the spread of violence in the Middle East, as the pundits asserted, but perhaps because it was time for the Mother of All Bear Rallies, now almost two years old, to keel over and die.”  I’ll let my bearish call ride for now, however, because the market’s recent highs came within inches of longstanding, major Hidden Pivot targets. But I’m not going to chisel the prediction in stone as I did a “hula prediction” that Goldman Sachs would ultimately trade below $30 during the bank-stock  » Read the full article