Dude, Where’s My Car?
face=”Arial, Helvetica”>Don’t fear the reap
… o-man
will probably hear a lot of folks uttering the title of my
piece: “Dude, where’s my car?” They won’t be
referring to the teen motion-picture comedy about foolish
drug use and partying. Instead, they’ll be asking because
their cars have been repossessed.
But, hey, as Fed guv McTeer said, “If we all just go
out and buy an SUV, we can prevent a recession.” Thanks
for sharing your brilliance with us, Mr. McTeer. The
upcoming week should prove to be equally enlightening, as
Fed governors and Mr. Bubblespan himself strap on their
Stratocasters and go on tour.
Are there reasons to get excited? I beg to differ. Forget
about the shenanigans of institutions jamming up TJX
Companies
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Healthcare
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PowerRating), and Abercrombie & Fitch
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for the past few days, in order to make their quarter-end
numbers a bit juicier.
Remember what they did to Merck
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at the beginning of 2001, when the drug stocks were the
momentum sector and the stocks you just had to own? If you
don’t remember, pull up a chart and check it out. When those
boys are done squeezing every ounce of blood they can out of
a stock or sector, they cast it away like a melted chocolate
bar found in their pockets on a hot summer day.
In addition, the market decided midweek that it no longer
wanted economic numbers that showed intense weakness (God
knows, we’ve seen enough of those), but, rather, economic
numbers showing an ever-so-slight bounce-back. As the
pathological liar used to say, “Yeah, that’s the
ticket.”
Certainly! If their agenda was to jam the Dow stocks higher,
why wouldn’t they try to change the game midstream?
But wait! They also hammered the likes of Cisco
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Sun Micro
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Brocade
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Whatever the big boys did this past week had absolutely
nothing to do with the economy or fundamentals. It had to do
with their bottom lines. Let’s all join hands and pray to
our respective gods that the quarter’s end-games are now
over.
The increased consumer-confidence number should be taken
with as much seriousness as a Jennifer Lopez movie. Don’t be
fooled by the sudden jump up in any numbers relating to the
psychological state of the average consumer. The reason? The
average consumer is not that bright.
Let’s review the facts:
The average consumer has a negative savings rate (that means
he spends more than he earns); the average consumer has a
historically high level of credit-card debt; the average
consumer still has 42% of his household net worth in the
stock market; and —