I wanted to share with you some quotes from some notable, respected sources about the end of the bear market..…

Analyst says bear market is beginning to level out.
Richard Cripps, chief market strategist for Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc., is urging investors to begin leaning toward small- and mid-cap companies with lower valuations and higher projected earnings growth than the Standard & Poor 500, because the economy is transitioning out of a bear market. Cripps predicts the equities market is moving in a much different direction than the immediate past markets

Time to say bye-bye to the bear?
In case you missed it — or were too dazed to notice — the stock market has bottomed. "The bear is dead!" screamed a recent stock market report from Alfred E. Goldman, chief market strategist for A.G. Edwards Inc. in St. Louis. Maybe it's a rash pronouncement, but other economists and market strategists are preparing eulogies as well.

Stock Investors Start to Believe That the Worst May Be Over
"We are all trained to look at this rationally and objectively, but I've got to say that there also was a gut feel that this couldn't go down too much farther," says Jon Brorson, director of stocks at the money-management arm of Northern Trust Corp. in Chicago. "We all sat together in meetings and said this has got to turn, this has got to turn. It was basically one of those chewed-on-pencils kinds of things." The firm has urged its clients to shift some money out of cash reserves and into stocks. Technology stocks took some of the worst punishment over the past 15 months, but even some longtime skeptics about tech stocks don't expect the broad market to fall much more. Although "the incredibly strong stock market that we have experienced for the last few years is unlikely to repeat itself for a while," says Henry Herrmann, chief investment officer at mutual-fund group Waddell & Reed in Overland Park, Kan., "I think the trend is up. So I guess I'd have to say that we are in a bull market." Robert Morris of Lord Abbett & Co. in Jersey City, N.J., another tech skeptic, says "I don't see how you could be bearish here" about the broad market.

And these sentiments are understandable, considering the market's strength…………..which is undeniable:

Oh, wait, did I mention one other thing? I think I should. These quotes were all from the spring of 2001. Allow me to share with you a bit of a larger context, with the above graph tinted in yellow.

So, in all honesty, I think that all of you that are in bull-mode right now probably have the same disposition – – and reasons – – that the esteemed individuals mentioned above had at this exact time of season seven years ago. And I think you'll be proved every bit as wrong. As for my bearish friends. May God smile upon us and, for once, reward skepticism and prudence.

I never thought much of the term "MicroHoo" that was coined back on February 1st. It seemed like something a bit NSFW (and even fairly alluring). But not business-like.

In any case, it's a term that needn't be used, because YHOO has thumbed its nose at a deal that they will probably be begging to have back in a few months. Formerly large tech companies that get past their prime (Netscape, AOL, Sun) don't typically turn around and get big again. They get irrelevant.

It'll be interesting to see what each stock does Monday morning. I would guess YHOO would get hammered and MSFT might actually go up since they're not engaging in this not-so-bright transaction.

I spent part of the weekend at the Maker Faire, which, culturally, is probably the closest I'll ever get to Burning Man. I've never felt so normal in my life. For a stick-in-the-mud like me, it was a freak show, with:

• The largest concentrated collection of man boobs on the planet
• Fishnet stockings on many pairs of legs, most of which would permanently destroy any sexual appeal in a man's mind for fishnet stockings
• Garb that looked straight out of Dickensian England
• Long-haired hippie freaks
• Long-haired women (err, that would be on the armpits)

I did get to revisit my childhood fondness for model rocketry, but I left the place feeling like Mr. Middle America. It wasn't all bizarre, though. At least there were about ten men driving self-propelled cupcakes. So that balanced things out a bit.