David Lentz

Options Trader: Wednesday Outlook

Phil, much as I appreciate your longing and expectation for a run back up to the highs ... can you honestly see this happening with housing continuing to head lower, with the financial industry completely and utterly dependent upon handouts from the Fed (and ultimately you and me)?

And where was the fear-drenched sell-off? Have the circuit breakers in the markets tripped even once?

Seems like the (so far) quite mild decline can only be a step lower, as continued housing declines, a year's inventory of unsold homes weighing on the markets, and a likely doubling of the national debt (with the attendant dollar destruction) are going to act as pretty weight albatrosses hanging around our necks.

If we look back at historical declines, the dot-com collapse was far more severe, despite the premise for it being far milder than our current straits.

Perhaps you mean that we should expect a spirited rise, possibly approaching the previous highs, but only in preparation to dash investors on the rocks below with even steeper plunges to greater depths.

Is that kinda what you mean to say, with all this happy-talk? Or is this all merely a difference in time horizons, with you, the day-trading options whiz, looking no further ahead than a week at most, and me with a bit longer time horizon?