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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (9569)	11/18/2002 5:39:11 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Definitions I Of all the misunderstandings that occur on stock boards, the silliest are semantic differences. Many of the terms we glibly “bandy about” have vague definitions at best. Everyone sees the world from their own perspective and hence uses terms based on that perspective. No matter what their political views, most see themselves as – moderate, reasonable and centrist even when they are several sigmas from the mean. One of the most defining characteristics of market participants is the time scale of their market plays. The market is a conglomeration of the plays of these very different players. But each has their own perspective. Consider the simple terms like: ST = Short Term IT = Intermediate Term LT = Long Term Clearly these have vastly different meanings depending upon whether a day trader, swing trader or LTB&H poster is using the term. In fact, unless you know the particular poster’s market perspective these terms are useless. Even among the three broad participant groups, there is considerable variation. Variation in perspectives that can lead to misunderstandings. More recently, given our current market situation, I’ve seen a couple of other terms whose vague definitions are causing misinterpretations. Since we’re clearly in a two plus year plunge off a mania peak, it’s natural to be thinking about how long this will continue. Sometimes these thoughts are phrased in terms of “when the bear will end”. This phrase has very different meanings for different people. And those semantic differences have resulted in more than a few “dust ups” among board participants. For some the phrase merely refers to when we’ll break out of the current down channel exhibited in this chart (from Jorj) stockcharts.com[r,a]whclynay[pb50!b200][iub14][j8199102,y]&listNum=1 For others the phrase “when the bear will end” refers to when the plunge from mania peak reaches a valuation bottom. As this chart shows geocities.com the two ideas may be the same as in ’29 to ’32, or very different as in ’66 to ’74. Since for demographic reasons, I believe that the interrupted plunge of ’66 to ’74 is more like our current situation/predicament, I suspect many will think the bear has ended when he is only taking a breather. For those like myself that divide market history into secular bull and bear phases, the secular bear is very unlikely to end when the mania plunge ends in a valuation minima. That’s only the despair emotional phase. Only when after the plunge, the market “goes nowhere” for several years, and despair turns to disgust, will the conditions be right for a new secular bull to begin. So this leaves us with three definitions of “when the bear will end” – a significant break of the initial down channel, reaching the end of the valuation plunge off the mania peak, and the start of a new secular bull. Three different definitions and IMO three very different times. And most importantly, three very different appropriate market strategies to deal with these conditions. JMO lurqer