Philip Davis

Options Trader: Wednesday Outlook

David - I'm surprised and pleased that we had this rally even after oil jumped up. My bullish premise hinges on oil prices coming down. Housing is old news and I think priced in as are the bank woes (Federal aid and all). I'm not saying we're in great shape, just that we're not in Dow 11,000 shape.

Will you begrudge me 13,000 - while we may have some misfunctioning segments, earnings on the whole are chugging along. I think we did have our "fear drenched" sell off as the Dow just dropped from 13,200 to 10,800. Just because it didn't happen in one day, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I just wrote up something last week, I think on one of my evening posts that are free over at my site, comparing the current decline to the .com burst and this is actually worse. We just fell from 14,200 to 11,000 (22%) in 9 months while the Dow fell from 11,700 to 9,800 (16%) from Jan - Feb 2000 (about the same as our recent 2,000 point dip) and didn't really make a new leg down until March 2001, which quickly reversed and then 9/11, which is hard to use as a benchmark, cost us about 2,200 points but that was all the way into Oct 2001 - 21 months to lose 4,000 points and we dropped 3,200 in half that time. I consider that panic.

I've been saying since my 12/31 predictions for the year that Q2 earnings would begin the recovery so not so short a timeframe as you may think. I don't try to be a market cheerleader - I was Mr. Doom and Gloom last year when I thought 14,000 was ridiculous but if I get a sense that the members are too bearish, then I do tend to accentuate the positive and vs. vs.

You're right Al, same old, same old but it's fun to play when you catch the right waves...