The much better than expected jobs report supports the Fed?s view that the winter?s extreme weather had depressed the economic data. This has been my view since February, Will the Spring Thaw Push Stocks Higher? So far, the earnings season has gone much better than expected, and this is also a positive sign.
It has been a rough four months in the stock market and the Spyder Trust?s (SPY) meager gain of 0.7% in April did not help. The bullish enthusiasm that investors started the year with has pretty much dissipated as the collapse in some of the Internet and biotechnology stocks caused many to re-think buying the dip.
As I mentioned a month ago in The Stock Market Is NOT Rigged for Investors, the publicity campaign for Michael Lewis? book has further discouraged investors from buying stocks. Maureen O'Hara, a professor of finance at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management agrees saying ?that talk of stock market ?rigging? will needlessly scare investors.?
Last week?s Barron?s cover featured the headline Tired Bull and featured their semi- annual Big Money Pool of institutional investors. I read these pool results more carefully to see whether the consensus opinion of these experts could be helpful to the individual investor.
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