I have long held the belief that popular media offers potent contrarian indicators. The “cover curse” is the most famous, but I’d like to mention a rather curious one specific to our own little industry here: Zerohedge.
See, ZH came into existence in February 2009 (our own beloved Slope was already four years old by then). Right from the get-go, and for years and years after, it was steadfastly cynical, critical, and very bearish. Understandably, I was a big fan. Plus, it made sense that this very bearish publication came out at the almost EXACT bottom of the bear market, which would take place just days later.
As the infinite bull market ground on, however, it became common folklore that no bear market would begin until ZH gave up its perma-bearishness. That was discouraging, since it seemed about as likely to happen as, say, Slope become mega-bullish. But happen it did. I don’t know precisely when, but it was probably around two years ago or so, and finding examples of this new bullish mindset took me about eight seconds just by looking at their content this morning.
By the way, that “analogy” at the bottom has got to be one of the worst I’ve ever seen in my life.
Anyway, I think we can fully dismiss the notion that ZH turning bullish meant the top of the market, because that long-awaited event took place many, many thousands of Dow points ago. I can only say that being a bear is lonely to begin with, but when even the likes of ZH are bug-eyed bullish all the time, it is a singularly potent feeling of utter solitude.
