Bears Lurk in Markets' Bounce: Analysts

S&P slips below threshold at this morning's open

(NEWSER) - Wall Street is getting nervous, and not because of protesters. Stocks have been plummeting hard, and are now just inches above the threshold for what traders consider a bear market. The Dow dove 240 points on Friday and another 258 yesterday, leaving it perilously close to the bear market threshold of 10,248, the Wall Street Journal reports. The S&P slid below the threshold at this morning's open. More»

(NEWSER) - It's good news, bad news time for investors. The good news: In the last 100 years, only five other rallies have matched the 46% leap the Dow’s taken over the past six months. The bad news: None of those other extraordinary rallies, which came in the 1930s and 1970s, held, the Wall Street Journal reports. Like the current rally, those historical rallies came after big—in fact, even bigger—declines. While some lasted as long as two years, the big gains were all in the first six months. More»

(NEWSER) - The Dow has soared a whopping 30% since March 9, but Andy Kessler doesn’t think the good times are here again. “This sure smells to me like a sucker’s rally,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal. Earnings aren’t up. The market is just responding to three government actions:

• The “stress tests” have made nationalizations seem unlikely.
• With the Fed’s rate at close to zero, only stocks offer decent returns.

After a season of defensive investing, money flows to developing economies

(NEWSER) - The economic slump may not be over, but investors are piling on risk in emerging markets, driving up stocks in developing nations as they seek the large rebounds that will accompany a global turnaround, the Wall Street Journal reports. The week ending May 6 saw some $4 billion flow to emerging market funds. Brazil’s Bovespa index is up 75% over its October doldrums while overall emerging markets are up 50% since March. More»

(NEWSER) - Don’t get too excited by the stock market’s recent rally. Stocks may go up another 10%-20% this year, says analyst Jeremy Grantham, but after that the market will crash again, and stay that way for years. “We've lost our shirts and we feel poor,” explains Henry Blodget of Business Insider, “which isn’t conducive to profligate spending.” Plus there’s still $10-$12 trillion of debt to get rid of. More»