Yes, it's partly fear of that. But it is also--for me, anyway--partly expectation. I've seen some of these stocks sit and sit and sit, then the psychology changes in a flash, they zoom--either up or down. I don't see them moving down any time soon--they seem too cheap to me. Of course, if the bottom does fall out of the economy, they can look expensive in a hurry, but so will everything else.
I dunno, I was around in August of '82. Yeah, I know stocks were trading at mid-single digit PEs then. But, still, they sat and languished at those levels. Then, BOOM, they went up. There were a oouple of 9-1 days, the Dow was at, I think, around 600-700, John Templeton was treated as a wild-eyed loony tune guy whose time had passed for predicting 3000 on the Dow with a few years on WSW and in print. The employment reports have been holding us down, at some point, they will change for the better, IMHO, and the market will just take off. People are nervous about the market and the economy, but they also hate the yields they are getting. It won't take much to get them to put money in the market once the employment numbers shift, and there is a lot of cash on the sidelines.
JMHO. |
