Jon, i understood the thing about it being 94/95 and who-is-this-bearish-dude-isn't-he-dumb etc. my statement was more like, so what? (i think S100 thought i subscribed to some newsletter, and then he brought up his father-in-law's newsletter anecdote and mentioned how his father-in-law only had 10K in the market, and how the "news flash" calls from the newsletter were VERY IMPORTANT and so S100 wasn't allowed to listen to them. well, there are certainly a lot of cheesy newsletters out there (i love the promo material i get from some of these idiots), which more experienced and secure investors may get a chortle over, like laughing at some of the crap they write in tabloids as we stand in line to buy pate de foie gras at the super...but like this has anything to do with anything i talk about here).
actually, 94/95 was right before the bubble took off (94 was the last year the S&P500 dividend yield was above 3%, marking the end of a 200-year trend of dividend yields ranging from 3-6%), so it is not surprising that people who pay attention to historical quant measures like NDR would have put up a warning flag then. i don't subscribe to any NDR hotline, and didn't even know 'bout his website till yesterday...i just mentioned in passing that he has some amusing factoids (direct access to which institutional services presumably costs well in excess of my personal "research" budget) that surface now and then in other places on the Net, and i like to read these factoids (for free) when the opportunity presents itself.
so like, again, it's flattering and all to be compared to a (perhaps dearly departed) in-law who has all of 10K in the market and hoards valuable phone-hotline calls from multiple newsletters (and who knows, maybe Ned Davis would be flattered by a comparison to Louis Ruykeyser or Elaine Garzarelli or Gilder), but i don't think that discussion is too relevant. |
