re: Dow, Nas bottoms:
I don't really follow the Dow. Only 30 stocks, so a few changes in them, changes the index appreciably. Like adding MSFT and INTC.
And the Nasdaq, also, has had a lot of very poor-quality stocks (with temporarily-huge market caps) added in the last few years. So, comparing Nas 1995 and Nas 2001 is apples and oranges. Or maybe apples and lemons. I remember discussing, in 1999, how the Nas stocks without earnings were, as a group, outperforming the Nas stocks with earnings. Once the Nas stocks without earnings have been delisted (or reduced to insignificant market caps), then maybe it'll be apples and apples again.
Rather than targetting a particular number, I'm targetting a certain emotion. When the fear is universal, when all good news is ignored, and all bad news is repeated over and over, when no one is any longer hoping for an upturn in the foreseable future, when no one is saying "the stocks can't go down any lower", that's when I want to be buying.
I don't think we're there yet. The CEOs (semis and semi-equips) keep on saying business conditions are deteriorating rapidly without an end in sight, but the analysts and investors still have hope. |
