Monday, January 5, 2009

The return of momentum, and the exit of Minerva!

Remember the "Korean" Nostradamus Minerva? He predicted the demise of Lehman, and the sinking of the Korean market, and after 40 million hits, he became a sensation. He then stopped making predictions, and then went into hiding, allegedly because of pressure after the finance minister attempted to find his identity.
Now ask yourself this----Do we find bearish "prophets" at tops or bottoms? Nourel Roubini in Newsweek---does that happen at tops or bottoms?

How about this picture of him with a couple hotties right at the December lows? Does that happen at tops or bottoms? And did those girls leave their tops or bottoms on?

This weekend, we had David Einhorn, who also predicted Lehman's demise, getting front page ink in the NY Times. His hook to get people interested in reading was Madoff. And then, after he hooked em, he came with his cure for all that ails the financial system. His title of his penned piece? The End of the Financial World as We Know It.

Does this happen at tops or bottoms?

Today, we had a nasty article come out on Jamie Dimon-see below. And of course, if JPM sells off, so does all the other financials. But today was different. This time, the sell-off in the financials couldn't drag the rest of the market down.

Oil was strong, as were the solar names, and there were bids in the NAZ, and the first momentum chasers, the casino buyers were busy. Wynn was bid up 5, after being up 4 Friday; LVS was strong, and so was MGM. Either momentum is coming back, or Sam Zell's interest in Starwood was the catalyst to ignite the group. Maybe it's just real buyers and scared shorts!

In any event, there is plenty of rumbling that Penn Gaming is looking to buy some properties. And even Boyd Gaming (BYD 5.78) had buying interest, so it means that bottom fishers were buying up and down the entire Strip!

But take a look at Research in Motion (RIMM 43.30). Apple Computer got a bid because Jobs said he just had hormonal problems, and not a recurrence of cancer. RIMM trades with AAPL. This stock has been accumulated for the past month, and it had some inkling of life in it today.

I think we are seeing the return of momentum, and that some of those buyers who were accumulating this number the past month, are getting prepared to buy it a bit more aggresively.

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