If everyone calls a bottom, does it matter?
Here are some recent calls:
Reuters had this article that carried the following:
“Bill Miller said that all long-term investors believe that stocks today are cheap, but credit markets must regain health before equity markets can rally. It “looks as if the bottom has been made” in U.S. stocks, said Miller, who runs Legg Mason’s $7.6 billion Value Trust fund.”
“”We are in a bottoming process in the markets, but that doesn’t mean we are now entering a bull-market phase,” said Brian Gendreau, an investment strategist in New York for ING Investment Management Americas. “Things take time to work itself out.””
“”All year, people have been so pessimistic that any kind of bad news and the market just goes down,” said Chris Orndorff, who helps oversee $50 billion at Payden & Rygel Investment Management in Los Angeles. “But when the market shrugs off bad news just as it did, investors are signaling that the worst is behind us.””
On CNBC Monday morning Blackrock’s (BLK) Bob Doll called what is happening a “bottoming process”
Pick any other video on CNBC talking about stocks and you’ll here the same thing recently.
Here is a Google (GOOG) search for “bottoming process” so you can find the other 26,000 plus articles on it.
So, what to think? Nothing actually. If you watch the clips or read the quotes, this is the essential translation. “The market should go up, but it might fall more from here too, but the long term trend is up”.
Basically they are not telling us anything. Do not start buying stocks in this market because of these calls. Buy individual or sell issues based on their specific pro’s or con’s and your time frame.
You could argue that at any level the market is in the act of a “bottoming process”. If the long term trend is positive, then by default all levels before higher ones must be a “bottoming process”, right?
“Bottoming Process” means nothing…..
Disclosure (“none” means no position):None
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