Market Misery

So the tape has ripped for 6 weeks, up up and away! Hiyoooooo! Everyone should be so friggin psyched, yes? NOT. Few if any were heavily positioned on the long side 6 weeks ago. 3 weeks into the rally, even fewer were believers that this had any legs.

Bad news over the past 6 weeks has been interpreted as good. This has been the fuel to the fire as the market has climbed a truly impressive wall of worry. That is what drives stocks higher. That wall of worry. But I have to ask you all--when is this second derivative move going to end? My feeling is very soon--yes I know that there is a TON of fresh $$$ on the sidelines, but we are not rallying on fundamentals--we are back to the hope and hype trade.

Take a look at analyst reports and recommendations--they are talking about POWER numbers and out 12 months--raising multiples as we trough. All of this equates to what I like to call, "pulling it out of their collective asses." They don't know. Historically, there are metrics to follow, consult and base assumptions off of. Not this time. To me that is the most interesting element of this downturn. People keep looking for historical trends but look past the Depression as their reference point. Even over the last year +. it took months of downward pressure to have people finally look at the Great Depression as a true reference, forgetting 87, 97 and other recessionary periods.

So to bring this whole long winded piece full circle, we are not looking at good, great or even OK fundamentals. We are looking at numbers not being down 35%+ year over year and that has jacked this market to multiples that are not only unsustainable but unhealthy as well.

If you have been long, book those profits and sit back. If things do return to normal seasonality, we will watch the "sell in May" phenom take place over the next few months. As it is now--we will not know if true seasonality has normalized until late August or early September.

I would not be surprised to see this market pull back to the mid 600 level over the next several months before we collectively can determine if we will be really coming out of this economic downturn.
--The Angry Trader