Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
On the other hand his macro analysis was spot on. As we both know the subsequent Fed fueled rally commencing that October was a short sellers nightmare.
I'm open to a bit of a rally for a few reasons.
1. My technical work is more bullish than bearish.
2. While P/C ratios aren't at crash like levels-to wit the VIX is below 20-call buyers haven't emerged with any sort of enthusiasm. The rally is still mistrusted. Mistrust means shorts and shorts mean squeezes.
3. Earnings expectations are low. Throw in a weak dollar with a lot of inflation and an extra couple of cents beyond consensus can come from most anyone.
4. Some of this stuff broke so hard from their highs that even the most modest of bounces is enough to take an index sharply higher. It's not like the CAKE's of the world or even the C's can't trade up another 20% or more on air. Not to mention the CAT's that keep on purring.
5. It's the 70's not the 30's or 2001. Upside bs will be a twice a year event.
Agree with this. From my very peripheral analysis it seems virtually nobody is breaking out unit sales in the press release - just revenues are up from overseas - suggest that it is a weak USD effect and beneath this some companies unit sales growth could be weakening. It's not what management says its what it doesn't say that is the tell.
For larger companies there will be a window where high levels of cash on their Balance sheet can be used for buybacks - a use they may regret later, unless they used it to dump their stock as some are doing.
Management with stock to sell will pull every accounting trick in the book to beat their deliberately lowballed guidance - they can probably do this for one more quarter.
We seem to have a highly polarised market with the index being driven by oil companies and the IBM and CAT's of this world who benefit, at least for a while from a window of still strong BRIC growth, whereas other stocks are down 50% or more.
This comment from IHT akes a very good oint about how/why the indices are holding up so well.
"In order for profits to collapse as they normally do in a recession, you need industrials, technology, materials and energy to decline sharply. It's those sectors that usually decimate S&P profits and that is just not happening at all," Bianco of UBS said.
In the fourth quarter of 2007, only three out of 10 sectors reported a decline in earnings, compared with eight out of 11 in the fourth quarter of the 2001 recession. "It's because those hyper-cyclical sectors have become global-cyclicals," Bianco said. "More than half their revenues come from abroad, so they're positively exposed to commodities and the weak dollar."
Within the economy and below the S&P it will be a very diffferent story going forward, BUT,a s mentioned there are a lot of companies down 50% or more while the index is holding (read: being held) at only 20% below highs and I question how much lower they will go. I think there is another leg down on the reality of earnings but I will cover on that legdown. Gets very unclear after that - there is a time to be long, a time to be shotrt and a time to be fishin I think we have a fishin period coming up. Flat grinding for a couple of years where the bad news is priced in but there is no growth until clearing takes lace and bank lending starts again.