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Where are the Bears (And why are the Bulls so insecure?)

Saturday, October 14, 2006 | 02:46 PM

in Investing | Markets | Psychology/Sentiment

Is it just me, or have all the Bears been treed?

The Bulls are in chest-pounding glory. I feel like the last salmon-eating, hibernating, reality-based observer, who, according to the WSJ, writes in a "relentlessly bearish fashion." Guilty as charged. The caveat is that in October 2002, I was called a "hack perma bull".

My email hostility-o-meter has moved from yellow to red (but still has more room before its pinned), the trolls and sock puppets (new word for me!) have come out hiding. I keep hearing about the excess of Bears, but I neither see nore hear them anywhere. Sentiment is gloriously bovine.

Examples? Here's a selection of some recent RM commentary:

Shut Up and Run With the Bulls

Bubble in housing bubble-talk going limp?

Long, leveraged, locked and loaded

Buying Gets More Intense

How much does this market want to go higher?

And here's the ironic thing: the Bulls are so unbelievably insecure, you would think we were at Dow 2000, not on the cusp of Dow 12,000. Given how far and how fast this market has rallied, I have never seen a group of more insecure bulls in my life.

Even Jim Cramer exhorts (I assume tongue firmly in cheek) to his bullish brethren to Celebrate the Market, Quietly. "OK, I will go be quiet." he says. Is that sarcasm, or fear of offending the trading Gods?

It is as if every challenge to the mainstream data or bubblevision spin is a threat to their collective manhood.

Hey, don't be so defensive. The Dow is at all time highs, and you Bulls act as if I am accusing you of having tiny wee-wees. You remind me of the stand up comedienne, who everytime she sees a 50-something year old guy in a shiny new red Corvette, waves and yells, "Sorry about your penis!"

The Bullish argument is carrying the day, the market is up, Up, UP, and you guys are winning! Why so tentative? What is it that your lizard brains know that your frontal lobes hasn't consciously accepted yet? Gee, you would think the market is setting itself up for a shellacking, the way you are so self conscious.

Seriously: There are almost no Bears left standing. Enjoy yourselves -- its party time! Party like its . . . well, you know that song...