Cisco…Whoa!!
“Cisco…no profits…no growth…no
outlook…how does that add up
to being bullish? What type of “new age” analysis can the
analysts perform to get the public to buy that news?”
I don’t know, but I am sure that they will attempt to buy the down
opening…regardless. In fact, can anyone really remember a down open that
wasn’t immediately snapped up by “bargain hunters"? In fact, does
anyone also get the impression that Wall Street has instilled fear amongst the
public…that is, fear of not owning technology stocks before
the big rip roarin’ rally allegedly begins? Wall Street’s new mantra of
“you gotta buy now because things can’t get any worse than they are and
stocks never wait for the real bottom to show up before they begin racing up
again” is probably more ludicrous than the widespread belief amongst the
delusionaly bullish that the Federal Reserve will be able to lower rates to
some magical mark that will make CEOs around the world reach for their wallets
and loosen their purse strings.
Let’s put it this way, I know Santa Claus might be coming to town four months
from now but I’m not about to put out the milk and cookies quite yet.
“While we would like to say the bottom has been reached in our industry,
we don’t think we are there yet,” said John Chambers. “We are
becoming cautiously optimistic that it may be achieved in the next one to two
quarters in the U.S.”
For the fourth quarter, Cisco Systems’ earnings were down 99% from the same
period a year ago. The company earned $7 million dollars during
the quarter and currently sports a $143 billion dollar market cap. There
appears to be a problem here.
It is absolutely unconscionable that Wall Street is now hinging on every word
uttered by the likes of John Chambers and Andy Grove to give us insight into the
world’s economic woes. I wasn’t aware that they were trained economists.
Rather, I had the ridiculous feeling that perhaps both individuals (and hundreds
like them) would make comments that would serve to protect their personal
investments as well as those of the thousands of people who work for them.
Call me crazy, but if I’m holding a lot of positions either long or short, my
opinions tend to be skewed to that side of the table. Incredibly, myself
and a handful of you may be the only people who think like this.
Late last week I discussed that the market would be commencing a pullback
and a retracement of its recent run. In fact, this pullback began in
earnest last Friday and has continued early this week. My initial target
for the pullback in the S&P 500 cash index was 1195 which we touched (more
or less) yesterday and experienced a weak bounce from. It now appears that
a deeper retracement is in the cards, perhaps to the 1180 to 1185 area in the
S&P 500 cash index. The fate of the Nasdaq will really be in the
ability of the “buy on the gap down, regardless of nuclear war, etc.”
crowd to save the day early on. If they are unsuccessful in producing
another panic buying episode, this morning we may be well on the way to testing
the July lows.