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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (52892)	9/22/2001 11:50:53 PM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

From another thread, but still good news. :0) Stan BARRON's has a bullish cover story this week basically saying to buy stocks because they now are 17% undervalued by the Fed model. Even Alan Abelson looking for a good bounce after more turmoil early next week: " The stock market is writing its own story. And is it ever ugly. One thing the past week has demonstrated clearly is the absurdity of equating buying or selling stocks with patriotism or its absence. Patriotism, some long-forgotten solon once asserted, is the last refuge of scoundrels. It also occasionally can be the first resort of shills, not excluding those peddling stocks. The market is a mechanism for allocating capital and, of course, making us all rich. What it most decidedly isn't is a forum for venting civic sentiment. To equate buying stock with patriotism or selling stock with a lack of patriotism is balderdash, the equivalent of praising or damning a thermometer for the temperature it records. Apart from the stray urgings to buy stock as a way to show the flag, what struck us about the general commentary on the action of the market was how much of it was amnesic: You'd never know that stocks had been on the run and had been so for quite a spell. Indeed, prices sold off heavily in the week leading up to the attack. In brief, what happened last week was that a trend already in train sharply accelerated. The market was in any case vulnerable, because despite the smash-up of Nasdaq and the retreat of both the S&P 500 and the Dow, tell-tale signs of a bottom were conspicuous by their absence. Strategists were overwhelmingly bullish (although you wouldn't know it to listen to them now). Mutual-fund shareholders displayed no urgent inclination to redeem. Margin debt had been quietly puffed up to disquieting levels. And complacency, by and large, still ruled. Last week, as all the world knows, that began to change in earnest. Margin calls went out thick and fast and were no respecters of station, as witness the Basses' compulsory sale of a huge chunk of Disney. Redemptions shot up and anxiety rapidly replaced complacency. Our sense is, if the market follows form, it's in for another pounding early this week, after which will come respite and a rise. The latter could be sharp and short. Sharp, short, whatever -- after what we've just been through, it's bound to be sweet.