I want to start with a question; we need some kind of lingua franca about what's to come over the course of the next 21 months. I am constantly referring to the "sustained, multi-month countertrend rise" and "the plunge which follows it and takes out the lows so far", but I think we'd all agree neither of those monikers roll off the tongue.
Can anyone offer some ideas for some short, easy-to-remember terms we can use for the above? Of course, every n00b that pops onto the board afterward will wonder what the hell we're talking about, but I'd like us to get this figured out (and give all the other blogs a chance to steal our terminology and render it unpalatable, as they did with Comment Cleaner). I had asked this question in the prior post, and my favorite was "The Rally Before the Finale", but I really need something short (or at least something which becomes a nice acronym). Anyway, lay out your ideas!
I noticed today how much optimism has suddenly bubbled up. I think this is going to be vital for The Rally Before The Finale (come on, guys, please, help me out!) Some of what I saw in the past few hours……
- CitiGroup saying it is now profitable (ummm, so why are we handing you hundreds of billions?);
- Headline of Mercury News showing Google's CEO declaring the recession over;
- Headline of SF Examiner saying the economic troubles we're seeing are not a depression;
- Madoff to plead guilty and take a 150 year sentence, indicating this bit of business is behind us;
- Bernanke stating plainly that big banks will not be allowed to fail, period;
- Frank pledging that the uptick rule will come back
My guess is that, come April, when Q1 earnings start coming out, they will be less awful than people have feared, and that, too, will push the market higher. There's going to be gathering momentum around the idea that 666 was the ultimate bottom.
I'm looking forward to the next few months. I think there's a ton of money to be made.
