Scott,
The article by Balzar is pretty close to complete idiocy. You can always tell when someone in the media tries to write about finance and money but doesn't have a clue about how markets work or how investment decisions are made.
People who were long in the market before 9/11 weren't long out of patriotism and assumed a wide variety of risks--weakening fundamentals, lack of visibility, terrorist attacks and even World War III. People who were short the market before 9/11 also assumed a variety of risks. People in cash assumed a variety of risks.
After 9/11 the markets were closed for 4 days and everyone had a chance to evaluate and reevaluate their risk tolerance and world view.
To my mind, today's Dow of 8500 and Naz of 1454 only represent a speeding up of the process which was already in place during the entire course of the year, and added some industries and segments to the bad news (airlines, financials, travel, probably retail).
Those who are long and stay long, even though incurring losses, are expressing their investment views. Those who sell their long positions or establish short positions are also expressing their views. A few days ago people touted the idea that individual investors should go out and buy a share of a stock to support the market and, somehow, support America.
But they are really supporting the idea that someone ignore his own view of the market today and volunteer to take over the equity position (I buy but somebody sells??) of someone who wants out. Why should I "manipulate" the market to let someone out and put myself into a position I don't believe in. In what way does a price of $18 for Cisco make America stronger than a price of $9 for Cisco? Does a "supported" price of $65 for MSFT help us out more than a market price of $48? How?
And this analysis applies to the little fellas, the middle fellas and the big fellas. This market will find its bottom, that's for sure--I'll give y'all the Apache scream when I think it happens.
Balzar's an idiot--you can tell him Kodiakbull said so.
Of course, that's just my two centavos. |
