" So please sit back in your theater seats folks and enjoy the popcorn. Listen closely for the consistent subtext and the plot driving Wall Street. Listen especially to all the B.S. that makes today's bull cycle a rerun of all prior cycles droning on late night television, because nothing really changes for Wall Street bulls, thanks to the consistency of their official language:
March 1999: Harry S. Dent, author of The Roaring 2000s
"There has been a paradigm shift." (Translation: "This time it's different, a New Economy!")
October 1999: James Glassman, author Dow 36,000
"What is dangerous is for Americans not to be in the market. We're going to reach a point where stocks are correctly priced, and we think that's 36,000 ... It's not a bubble. Far from it. The stock market is undervalued." (Warning, don't choke on your popcorn!)
December 1999: Joseph Battipaglia, market analyst
"Some fear a burst Internet bubble, but our analysis shows that Internet companies account for only 7% of the overall Nasdaq market cap but carry expected long-term growth rates twice those of other rapidly growing segments within tech." (The Internet Index lost two-thirds in the next six months.)
December 1999: Larry Wachtel, Prudential
"Most of these stocks are reasonably priced. There's not reason for them to correct violently in the year 2000." (Fact: The Nasdaq lost 50% in 2000.)
December 1999: Ralph Acampora, Prudential Securities
"I'm not saying this is a straight line up. I'm not saying you can't have pauses. I'm saying any kind of declines, buy them!" (He also predicted a 14,000 Dow by the end of 2000 and an 11-year bull.)
February 2000: Larry Kudlow, CNBC commentator
"This correction will run its course until the middle of the year. Then things will pick up again, because not even Greenspan can stop the Internet economy." (He's still an economist, hosting his own show.)"
Continued -
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