We are in a bear market. CNBC isn't reporting it yet, and they won't until the indexes finally crack. I look at the stocks I own and say hey, I'm not stupid. The leaders of industries - very high quality companies (ABK, CMH, GPC, BRK, CR) - are in what Mike Burry would call "technical no-mans land". Yet the indexes are within 5% or so of record highs. What stocks are at record highs? Can you name one? If you put a gun to my head, I could name two quickly - Intel and Cisco. After that, given that IBM and HWP collapsed last week, I'd get shot, because I can't think of another. Can you name 5? 10? I'm sure there are a few more than that...but isn't that the point?
There is something very very wrong here, unless there is going to be some announcement on Monday from the guys calculating the index: "Oops. There has been a little problem with our computers for the last 18 months. Actually the S&P is at 950, not 1300. Sorry. By the way, we're going to close the market for two days to correct this glitch. No hard feelings. And, psst...buy the dip."
I'm going to attempt some analysis on this because it absolutely perplexes me that the stock I look at (and I look at a lot of them, and not just "value stocks") are steadily drifting down while the indices are in a trading range near their high. Something just doesn't compute here.
JJC |
