Suddenly Everyone's a Market Expert

After a day of doing absolutely zilch, I spent some time clicking around tech blogs, and was amused to find a post from Robert Scoble artfully titled We’re in a death spiral, referring to the crumbling economy (if you don't already know who Scoble is, then lucky you). Anyway, this was the part that caught my eye:

Where do you see the market hitting bottom? I think we’ll test 8,000 by end of the year (some people say probably by the end of the week if it keeps going down line this).

Nope, I don't care that some yacker on the internet is predicting Dow 8,000. But what strikes me is the use of the word "test". That's pure CNBC-speak and in this case it's just meaningless gibberish. Unless you're actually referring to a meaningful technical level or a period (example: testing the 2003 lows), it's a ridiculous word to use.

Now I'm not making a semantic argument, but a larger observation: It's said that in a bull market, everyone fashions themselves a market expert. I think we're seeing the same in this scary dive.

Comments

[Jimmy Lathrop:]

The phenomena you describe is what is known as cocktail party syndrome. That is, when you are at a cocktail party, and the drunken loudmouth is hollering about his new investment in real estate or tech stocks or financials is the precise moment when you should take the exact opposite position.

2008 Oct 07 07:25 AM

[drhall:]

Right feelings, wrong words. Wrong words, right feeling.

A view that has a point should not be disparaged regardless.

True, many so-called experts may not know how to choose a classical parametric measurement tool vs non-parametric, he may not realize which uses the ordinal/nominal derived data or the interval/ratio data ...

Symantics / Biased information, may be a good indicator of how many arrived at this point and I don't see a good cocktail in sight.

2008 Oct 07 09:15 AM

[wpdragon:]

so far the pessimists and bears have been absolutely correct, while the permabulls and denial-aisle guys have been absolutely wrong... until that performance metric changes I'll stay on the sidelines and watch the denial aisle guys get their heads handed to them while they beat their chests and crow that this latest low is the bottom... so far all talk, no action.

2008 Oct 07 12:07 PM