Market Sentiment Observer

I may post here relevant (in my opinion), and not necessarily recent, quotes. Rather than analyzing specific investments, I will attempt to focus on investors' sentiment regarding broader asset classes and/or specific securities. These will be my thoughts/reactions/questions, and they are not and should not be taken as investment advice.

About me

In particular, I am interested in investors' sentiment and valuation levels. Disclaimer: I work at an Investment Management firm. My comments on this site are not posted in that role, and no opinions of mine should be construed to be recommendations of or to reflect the views of my employer.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Cui bono?

"Stocks slid on Monday, driving the Dow to its lowest level since February 10 as fresh signs of Europe's banking problems emerged."
Reuters

Gotta love all these "fresh signs". Last week/month/year's signs were not enough?

Apropos the Market Sentiment. CNBC got me all confused:

"Markets to Rise 11-14% by Year-End... 15% Correction Likely... Stocks to Come Back With a Vengeance... Markets Will 'Double This Decline' Into Year-End".

Binary outcomes, again: either up or down. Nobody said flat. Too TV-unworthy?

On the subject of the shiny metal: who is on the selling side of the counter? If gold is such a great buy/bargain, what all these gold coin peddlers doing selling it? Shouldn't they hoard it like crazy? Just hold on to it for a year and sell at a much greater profit, isn't that the case? Oh... they sell to buy to sell again. Are they "flipping"?

Sounds like flipping to me... kind of like "house flipping". With all these efforts, it might as well keep on going up for a while. Real estate was also under-priced/a storage of value/inflation hedge/sure thing/always going up. When Fed accommodates, investors always seem to find a storage of value, don't they?

Disclaimer: I am neither bullish nor bearish on gold.