Is Your Stock Analyst Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
Technical Bounce In The Market: Have We Seen A Bottom? "I think we've seen a bottom" If I had a nickel for every time I have heard an analyst say that over the past year, I would have all of my money back from the losses I have from listening to them in the first place.
Just kidding, I never listen to these guys.
As I have discussed before, the art of being an analyst includes 20/20 hindsight, liberal use of the phrases "I think", "we think" or "my firm thinks", the ability to say that stocks are cheap because they are x percent off of previous highs regardless of what future earnings may look like, no accountability for past errors (such as Joe Battapaglia's endless bullishness during the tech boom and through the bust), the cleverness to go with the momentum such as during the oil and commodities run ups when the sky was the limit, loving stocks at $60 all the way down to $15 when you finally downgrade them and any number of other talents that I am probably forgetting.
My cynicism comes partly from watching and listening to guys like Henry Blodget during the tech boom raise price targets on companies that wouldn't potentially get a whiff of real earnings for 5 or more years if everything went perfectly, to levels that were insane.
It also comes from continuing to watch the and listen to the blather that comes out of guys today that were there during the same time, making the same types of statements as Blodget but managing to avoid the same consequences.
Being Your Own Stock Analyst Bottom line, we have to be our own advocates and do our own homework, run some of our thoughts by some of the analysts with proven track records that we respect (reading their research), and then making our own decisions.
What To Make Of Today's Stock Market Actions On the heals of the Intel warning last night, the market went down and tested previous lows, held the level and then proceeded to go on a monster bounce in the last hour.
Is that it? Are the waters now safe? Do we commit any money that we may have left (or dry powder as they like to say) to the market? I am going to have to take a pass, if only for the fact that the news that took us down in the morning, yesterday, the day before, etc.
has not changed.
The guys in Washington still have to prove that they have a clue as to what will get us out of this mess (maybe we will get that from the G20 over the weekend), economic data has to improve, consumer confidence has to improve, housing has to improve, employment has to improve, the auto dilemma has to be resolved, etc.
For now I go with the fact that this bounce was merely technical.
Maybe I will go find an analyst to ask.
Just kidding, I never listen to these guys.
As I have discussed before, the art of being an analyst includes 20/20 hindsight, liberal use of the phrases "I think", "we think" or "my firm thinks", the ability to say that stocks are cheap because they are x percent off of previous highs regardless of what future earnings may look like, no accountability for past errors (such as Joe Battapaglia's endless bullishness during the tech boom and through the bust), the cleverness to go with the momentum such as during the oil and commodities run ups when the sky was the limit, loving stocks at $60 all the way down to $15 when you finally downgrade them and any number of other talents that I am probably forgetting.
My cynicism comes partly from watching and listening to guys like Henry Blodget during the tech boom raise price targets on companies that wouldn't potentially get a whiff of real earnings for 5 or more years if everything went perfectly, to levels that were insane.
It also comes from continuing to watch the and listen to the blather that comes out of guys today that were there during the same time, making the same types of statements as Blodget but managing to avoid the same consequences.
Being Your Own Stock Analyst Bottom line, we have to be our own advocates and do our own homework, run some of our thoughts by some of the analysts with proven track records that we respect (reading their research), and then making our own decisions.
What To Make Of Today's Stock Market Actions On the heals of the Intel warning last night, the market went down and tested previous lows, held the level and then proceeded to go on a monster bounce in the last hour.
Is that it? Are the waters now safe? Do we commit any money that we may have left (or dry powder as they like to say) to the market? I am going to have to take a pass, if only for the fact that the news that took us down in the morning, yesterday, the day before, etc.
has not changed.
The guys in Washington still have to prove that they have a clue as to what will get us out of this mess (maybe we will get that from the G20 over the weekend), economic data has to improve, consumer confidence has to improve, housing has to improve, employment has to improve, the auto dilemma has to be resolved, etc.
For now I go with the fact that this bounce was merely technical.
Maybe I will go find an analyst to ask.
