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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doug who wrote (72468)	3/17/2001 2:08:09 PM
From: George Martin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

<<The Govt has lost $70b/ year from capital gains but there is no mention of that in Congress.>> --Good point. Not only has no one said a word about that in Congress, I haven't heard any talking heads on the tax cuts mention it either. Don't know what proportion of the 4.8 mill lost so far would have been cap gains but that's a massive hit for both Fed and state coffers. -- Market bottom/ capitulation: I find ritualistic worship of a necessary defined "capitulation" a little odd. I thought sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. Look at '29, '73-'74. -- '90-'91 recession: Like now, Greenspan was too slow to act then. Then he termed it "a statistically significant downturn" -- later when he saw the tire tracks across his back, well, then "Oops, it was a recession." I was long in many techs and several of the banks which suffered from the S & L fallout, bad debt, liquidity threats, etc. Greenspan waited too long and many of the banks shriveled on the vine month after month. Shawmut Bank went down to 2 7/8. The turnaround took "too long" because Greenspan waited too long. Turnaround came 1992 Q3 and Q4 (lucky Bill Clinton) and many people got bled out of excellent LT positions. 24 months later Shawmut was bought out by Fleet for 27 +, almost a 10x increase from low. I think a similar pattern has occured now with many of the tech stocks that sell cost effective productivity tools essential for earnings growth. In this environment they have understandably become "leprosy" stocks but I think they will be 'cured' with time. -- Brazen bulls/ brazen bears: market sentiment reminds me of WWF mentality. At the top last spring, value and cash and defensive holdings were not just avoided, they were "trashed" by many. Now bears-- like Gary B. Smith on Fox today -- saying, 'Yeah, CHKP went down Friday, I think it's a good stock to short on Monday at the open' --!!!! Casual and careless recommendations to short any tech stock that hasn't "fallen enough" -- maybe that's another indicator of a low, just like 'blind' buying on the way up reflected the bull mania. Are we approaching a "bear mania" here ? -- Bullish/ bearish sentiment: I would sure like to know who some of the people are who polled on this Q ? I sure in the hell don't know many bulls at this time and I am LT investor sticking this out. I think these reports fail to distinguish the time frame: I think many feel that the market will be higher in a year than it is now but have NO inclination to buy much of anything at this time. If they are calling this a bullish sentiment, I think it skews the picture. -- Really appreciative the many informative TA and statistical analyses here, as well as the voices from fundamental perspective.