David Gaffen
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Ken Lewis: When Buying the Dips Fails
In a bull market, buying on the dips works like a charm. Pullbacks in the market are quickly cannibalized by hungry investors looking for anything that smells like a bargain. In a bear market, dip-buying does not work so well, as supposed bargains turn out to be value traps. This brings us to Ken Lewis, retiring as CEO of Bank of America. If dip-buying is a disaster in bear markets, Lewis engineered the M&A version of "dip buying" at the worst time not once, but twice. Full Article
Fed Starts to Remove Candy; Market Demands More
The stock market's penchant for emotional reactions that remind one of a roomful of two-year olds can never be underestimated. Major world central banks are pulling back on their efforts to provide liquidity to the financial system, and the U.S. equity market has flipped out, with stocks falling sharply after the news. The move in stocks follows a similar sell-off late Wednesday, after the Federal Reserve's statement, which intimated that it would start to reduce the tools that it has employed in keeping things afloat. Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading pegged the reaction as a predictable one from the notoriously self-interested stock market, saying that "now all the money printing crack addicts who are waiting for more of it are not getting their money printing and they are going to throw a hissy fit." Full Article
Hair of the Dog Rally
The old lore about the best way to cure a hangover is with a few more nips of whatever it was you were imbibing the previous evening, commonly known as "hair of the dog." The extension of this rally in stocks and just about every other asset identified with risk feels like a hair-of-the-dog situation. Between 2003 and mid-2008, easy flow of capital facilitated revelry in stocks, emerging markets, real estate, bonds, and high-yielding currencies. Full Article | Comments [1]
