When facts don't matter / fleckenstein

he focuses his attention on the latest market reaction to the dell news. click on the headline to read fleck´s frustration. same could be said to almost every other bad news news recently ( maybe new changed this).......

wenn ihr die frustration von fleck in sachen dell nachlesen wollt bitte auf die überschrift klicken. mir geht bzw. ging es bei etlichen allen news oft ähnlich. evtl. hat aber die new century news etwas geändert.....

As anyone who focuses outside of tech can attest, that mind-set thrives in many sectors. Take the housing ATM, for example. Last Tuesday, insurance giant MGIC Investment announced it was buying Radian Group ), which is an insurer of more-questionable mortgages. What was stunning was not that Radian rallied but that MTG exploded for 10% as well.

Two days later, in an ironic twist to the MTG/RDN saga, subprime lender New Century Financial imploded, with the shares dropping by about 33%. The same day, HSBC Holdings upped its mortgage-loan-loss reserves from $8.8 billion to $10.6 billion.

So it goes in Drink-It-Pretty City
Thus, it's now good news when you raise guidance, lower guidance, your CEO/CFO stays, your CEO/CFO leaves. Higher oil prices are bullish, as are lower prices. We are in an environment that is 100% concept-driven. Facts matter little, though on occasion they seem to matter for a few moments.

As I suggested at the outset, this is the zaniest moment I have ever seen. The 1998-2000 period was silly ("new era" thinking), but it was just about massively overpaying for nonstop good news. Today's mentality is: We can do anything we want because there is no downside.

Market peak plays hide-and-seek Obviously, this level of lunacy can't continue indefinitely, but while it goes on, it can reach any magnitude. There's no determining in advance whether it lasts for five minutes or 90 days.

One can only try to tell when it has exhausted itself. All I can say is, the spectacle that I see on a daily basis is really something for the history books.