Comments on: Pick a Bottom — Any Bottom

By: Mark E Hoffer

Mark E Hoffer — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:48:29 +0000

another example of why McHugh is one to read..,

too many others, readily found, are not only dysfunctional in their analysis, but also it infects their prose..

that said, I hope I included the requisite # of commas (:

By: karen

karen — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:07:24 +0000

Jack, do you come up with these titles on your own? Words are fun, aren’t they. Great piece, great timing… thanks.

By: usphoenix

usphoenix — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:28:19 +0000

Thanks Jack. Interesting perspective, and nice approach. Let everyone pick their own bottom.

By: leftback

leftback — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:20:51 +0000

Jack, This has to be the most bearish post ever!! I hate to fade you, but this has to be a short-term contrarian indicator !! My perspective on today is that with revisions, the second derivative of jobs is now close to zero.

The market always seems to do that which is least expected. Everyone seems to be looking for a high energy snap-back rally. How about a low volume wall-of-worry climb for a month or two instead?

That having been said, I am not anxious to be long this market, just selected sectors. The Fibonacci 62.1% retracement is about 605. We certainly will not go lower on this leg down. (OK, that was a tongue-in-cheek homage to Andy Tabbo, the usually brilliant Big Picture wave technician).

By: microcap

microcap — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:10:39 +0000

The simple math here can be very painful depending on your perpective. 157 points down on the S&P adds 10% to the decline from the top. Not fun but not the end of the world.

But from today’s price, that’s another 25%!!!

Percentage analysis can be painful when negative numbers are involved !!!

By: d4winds

d4winds — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:43:03 +0000

good antidote all the bottom calling (which has been going on since Sept. for Pete’s sakes)

By: dunnage

dunnage — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 05:19:02 +0000

What’s the big problem with principle write downs? Should have been done a couple of years ago, and the money centers might have been able to survive for a few Trillion. The commercial banks would be compensated by govt. in the process to preserve their reserves.

So, since nothing that I see being done by Wall Street and the Treasury helps much, what’s to stop the market trend in place? I’d rather throw a dollar at Citi, than do anything but short MS, Goldman, Well, and Chase. I cannot yet see them as real businesses — and of course they haven’t been for years. Same execs and a Wall Street Treasury. No imagination to be found: Krugman thinks he’s a liberal and American’s think Reagan was a fiscal conservative.

So, Dow 3800 if there is a god.