J.F.- In re: "What do you suppose public sentiment will be like at
the top? Complacency? Enthusiasm?"
I certainly would agree that, anecdotally, the signs of a market top
are evident, if not pervasive. The commercials advertising brokers,
virtual and otherwise, on CNBC-TV are most telling, it would seem.
Here we see folks of all stripes playing the game of stocks, as it
were, at all hours of the day and night. There are no losers, only
grinning, if not complacently smug, winners.
The esteemed Professor Andrew Sarris of Columbia University,
movie critic extraordinaire and pioneer film theorist, has said
that television advertisements not only represent the leading edge
of cinematic technique but also encapsulate a better snapshot of
the popular culture at any given instant than the television shows
themselves (which last are merely vehicles, according to Sarris,
that carry the essential programming of that media, i.e., the com-
mercials).
What are the TV commercials telling us today about this market?
They seem to suggest that stock trading and investing have become
the premier national pastime. There may be much truth to this. If
memory serves, Larry Kudlow, second in command at OMB during
the Reagan tenure and former chief economist at Bear Stearns, has
stated that even at the peak of the market in 1929 only 10 per cent
of the adult populace directly invested in stocks. In 1990, that
number doubled to 20 per cent. According to Kudlow, forty three
per cent of the populace are now direct owners of stocks. To be
sure, one of the latest polls by Zogby, apparently the only national
pollster who correctly predicted the wide margin of victory for the
Republicans in 1994 and the arithmetic margin of success by Clin-
ton in 1996, indicated that 50 per cent of the adult American public
holds stocks. It would seem that Wall Street has become Main
Street.
That being said, it has become fairly evident that the investing
public is not easily shaken from this market. Nonplussed by the
occasional dizzying and precipitous declines and with a mind to
the long term, the public returns again and again to buy the dips
and renew their market vows. For many, the decision to invest
for the long haul has been set on autopilot, via 401(k) and 403(b)
plans and the like. After all, those seeking enhanced investment
returns in a non-inflationary, low interest rate climate have little
else to turn to besides the stock market, especially, the US stock
market given Pax Americana, US corporate pre-eminence, and
the faltering overseas bourses.
Therefore, it would seem that a case could be made that-- failing
an Art Bell heralded extra-terrestrial alien invasion, a Y2K induced
national power grid failure and/or worldwide economic calamity, a
titanic asteroidal cataclysm and subsequent global winter, or any of
a number of unforeseen catastrophic X-factors-- this market may,
indeed, outpace Brinker's oft cited Energizer Bunny until the baby
boomers retire beginning anno Domini 2008, as some analysts
have opined.
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