Chris Butler_

Are We Seeing a Bogus Dip?

Curve fitting. That's all Paulsen is doing. I can't believe such weak logic has enabled this man to stay in his profession for as long as it has.

His first point about how, historically, rallies do not end after 30 days is absurd. "Real estate never goes down on a national scale." Historicism is dangerous when applied to markets. The market does not care what happened in each of the last 20 recessions. You know what kind of rally ends after 30 days? A 30-day rally.

His second point is essentially don't count the March low because it was caused by a bank run. Absurd again. Since when have technicians assessed the cause of market bottoms and thrown some out because, well, that hardly ever happens. Please. Feel free to revise history if you'd like, but stay away from my money.

Finally, the whole notion of an "alternative bottom," aside from begging for a punchline, is pertinent only to those living in an "alternative reality." The reality in which I dwell and invest makes tops and bottoms that can be verified through the passage of time and they can bee seen with a naked eye on a chart.

For those of you that buy the "alternative bottom" thesis, perhaps you should have "alternatively sold" at the "alternative top" in the S&P 500 yesterday. What? You don't remember when the S&P 500 soared to 2,000? Oh. Maybe that was just *my* alternative reality. My bad.