Are Those Robins?

IBD ^ | march 20, 2008

[Kaslin]

Economy: We're hard-pressed to recall a week when so much changed so fast in the markets. It was truly mind-boggling. And how appropriate that it all came to pass as winter turned to spring.

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To be sure, the challenges facing the U.S. economy are still daunting. But only a few days ago, they were nothing less than harrowing. Indeed, it really did seem like our financial system was "melting down," as many reports put it, with Fed and administration officials in full rescue mode.

Eighty-five-year-old Bear Stearns — one of Wall Street's most storied investment firms, and one that only a couple days earlier pronounced itself fit — was in the blink of an eye found to be essentially bankrupt and nearly worthless.

This in turn raised questions — no, fears — about Bear's even-more-prestigious rivals, all of which were about to report first-quarter results. "Collapse of Bear Stearns Heralds Worse to Come," warned one headline from London. Those in the U.S. weren't much more sanguine.

In fact, doubts spread — or at least were sowed — about an entire capitalist system that some thought had become so fragile and infected by the subprime mortgage virus it might soon collapse, leaving our global free-market system in ruins.

[Bahbah]

Kaslin, the link isn’t working.

[misterrob]

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=290905247769192

[Bahbah]

Thanks, misterrob.

[kms61]

I’ve read several IBD editorials recently that I would categorize as rather pollyanish. Nothing has changed fundamentally about the economy. Market psychology is not unimportant, and there’s something go be said for optimism as an economic indicator. But it’s way premature to pronounce the patient on the mend, or even out of the woods yet.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

But it’s way premature to pronounce the patient on the mend, or even out of the woods yet.

I started buying this week.

Behold the bottom

.