can the horse visit him in the slammer? -g-
agree on the argument thing...but then, a dedicated bear, armed with reams of statistics is also hard to out-argue. in the end, the market will do whatever it does anyway. basically i believe that the bears have history, and some pretty weighty evidence on their side, but as long as no confidence breaking trigger event occurs, business as usual will be the order of the day.
it is easier to be a bull, in many ways, whether it makes sense or not. for one thing, stocks trend up more often than down, and have a natural upward bias built in. what's more, optimism, no matter how lightly grounded in reality, is generally favored over pessimism. pessimism ain't good for business, and the issues most bears base their pessimistic views on seem too complex for the average Joe to get his teeth into(i say this based on anecdotal evidence...blank stares are often encountered when the machinations of the bubble are explained to JQP). the sound-bite cheerleading of CNBS is simply easier to grasp.
of course, WS has also disallowed pessimism...find me one independent minded strategist in the employ of a WS firm, aside from Biggs who seems to be kept around as a sort of eccentric curiosity. bulls can always be wrong - no-one will ever complain. but bears get the boot.... |
