Monday, October 19, 2009

A 10,000 DOW

Last week, the Dow broke 10,000 for the first time in what seems like forever, but it still has a ways to go to reach it's high of 14,000.
The big question, of course, as advisors is whether it will continue on it's upward trend, or if it's poised to drop back down. Good arguments are available for each opinion. First, the arguments for the bulls:
1) Momentum is on the bullish side.
2) Companies are starting to show good earnings - see Google, JPMorgan Chase, etc.
3) 90% of the mutual fund inflows are going towards bonds, which suggests a strong bull is coming as general investors are notoriously wrong when it comes to their inflows.

Now, here's the bear position:
1) The housing market is still a mess, and can easily take us back into a recession (multiple articles on this one).
2) Banks are still bleeding cash - see Bank of America, Citigroup, and GE's finance arm still losing billions.
3) The Government hasn't yet figured out what fiscal responsibility is, and is burying our country in debt.

So who's right? I’m a bull short term and a bear long term.

No comments:

Post a Comment