Why the Bear Market is Not Over

September 18, 2004 4:22 PM

Why the Bear Market is Not Over. A PowerPoint presentation from the perpetually pessimistic people at The Prudent Bear.
posted by Kwantsar (8 comments total)

But it's their job to be perpetually pessimistic. Saying that the folks at Prudent Bear are, well, bearish is like saying that a man waving a gun is looking for trouble.

Sometimes your expectations color your perceptions.
posted by ilsa at 4:49 PM on September 18, 2004

See also this uly 2002 post and resulting thread about Prudent Bear and other market skeptics. Simply dismissing Prudent Bear, ilsa, as "perpetually pessimistic" - in the face of continued Enron-style accounting shenanigans and the hilarious "Yay Google!" idiocy of just a few months ago, no less - strikes me as ridiculously close-minded.

Prudent Bear has always seemed to me a valuable warning flag amid the insane backscratching that goes on between the banking, investment, technology and media worlds. Only a fool (not the Motley kind) would dismiss them outright.

Thanks for the link, Kwantsar, even if it is in hideous PowerPoint form.
posted by mediareport at 6:17 PM on September 18, 2004

was someone claiming that the bear market *was* over?
posted by Mars Saxman at 7:29 PM on September 18, 2004

yeah, mars, frankly i've seen no evidence that "the bottom is in". we're probably a couple years from that still.

i'm generally staying in cash (and a few put options here and there) until the idiocy finishes shaking out. a lot of people are going to get hurt before this is all over. it's the only way it can end.
posted by muppetboy at 7:51 PM on September 18, 2004

(I never said we were in a bull market, just that Prudent Bear's job is to be bearish. Personally I think the markets are going pretty much nowhere for the rest of the year. Up or down 500 Dow points, stuff that used to happen in a couple days. Of course there's money to make if you know what to buy/sell/short and when. And I still don't understand why people are paying this much for Google.)
posted by ilsa at 8:42 PM on September 18, 2004

Then, there's the real-estate bubble.
posted by troutfishing at 9:18 PM on September 18, 2004

This is interesting...
posted by muppetboy at 11:52 PM on September 18, 2004

I have owned a small position in the Prudent Bear Fund for a number of years as a hedge on other long investments. I believe they are one of the best, if not more interesting market short funds. Not that my approval counts for much since overall I am down on this investment, the market never crashed like was predicted, but it still could (and I hope it doesn't), it is an insurance policy based on real risks in the market.
posted by stbalbach at 1:23 AM on September 19, 2004