There Is a Silver Lining Here
By Rev Shark
Street.com Contributor
10/2/2008 4:09 PM EDT
It doesn't get much uglier than this. It was just steady selling all day, and while it certainly was gloomy and depressed, we didn't get the sort of spike in fear that makes you think that we are seeing a real washout. The point loss was huge, breadth ugly, and the carnage unrelenting. Even the serial bottom callers were too scared to do their thing.
What this is all about is that we are pricing in an ugly recession. The bailout apparently isn't even that important now to the market, which is looking past that and considering all the other negative ramifications of this collapse in the credit markets. The Senate passage of the bailout bill last night was greeted by selling, and I'm not very confident that House passage is going to give us much of a bounce. It isn't even a sure thing, however, we are oversold enough that if the bill does pass, it sets us up for some sort of limited relief bounce.
We also have the monthly jobs report in the morning, and you can be sure that is going to be very carefully watched. Unemployment is going to be the thing that scares Main Street the most, and if it jumps again, it really is going to send the message home that a recession is upon us.
The good news about all this is that we are obviously in the process of pricing in some very poor economic times. At some point, we'll probably overshoot, and eventually bad news won't receive any more negative reaction. When that happens, we'll know that a bottom is close. Unfortunately, trying to guess how long that process will take is impossible. Stay patient, and I promise you that one of these days we will be able to buy stocks once again.
