My prediction that the Dow would go down to 10250 is so far holding out. Today (at 1pm) the market was down mostly on oil prices. It's funny to read the financial news. As with most news we are exposed to, financial news can be biased. Just like when you come to Lowbar and your read my postings, you'll get a negative view of the U.S.'s economics, if you read the regular press, you'll get an optimistic view. Here's an example from Yahoo's Market Update:

While August was widely advertised as the third worst performing month for the S&P 500 over the past 50 years, and has so far lost about 2.4% this month, it may be worth noting that the rally last year did start in August... In fact, the S&P rallied on two separate occasions last year... From Aug. 12 through Sept 21 the S&P surged 6.2%.

They had to report the news but they didn't have to add that last bit about the rally in September that occured last year. This logic assumes that the stock market follows trends along the calendar. This is shakey logic for timing the market. The investor who follows this advice is probably going to loose money.

Let's make a bet, I have no idea what the market will do during the Aug. 12th through Sept 21 timeframe but I'll bet that's it's going down on average.

Why is the financial press optimistic? Is that what is keeping the market going? What happens when the general press turns negative?


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