Understanding This Market Bonanza

Understand how great this period is. Understand that these gains are the product of a shift both by individuals and institutions into a group of stocks that are expensive by their very nature. Understand that the market is not equipped to handle this infusion of both individual and institutional money, and the result is the bonanza that you are seeing.

And it will last until the underwriters murder it with supply.

Join the discussion onTSC Message Boards. Right now, the underwriters simply aren't able to meet the demand. I read Ben Holmes religiously, and despite his analysis that the deal calendar is heavy, it simply does not meet the deluge test. I have seen several deluges in my time, and this isn't even high tide! It's vernal!

I think the market is going higher. And when people ask me about the market, as several hundred did last night at a charity function I co-hosted, I say that. But I also quickly add, "Please take something off. Please take a souvenir of the era and put it away here. It is just too good to be true."

Random musings: Mel Kasper, my biotech guy, is screaming to me in one ear about some company that's got some "eternal life" rap or something. Matt "Goin' Higher" Jacobs is yelling in the other about some B2B company that will handle 110% of the GDP in 2003. Meanwhile, some clown is in buying QQQ (QQQ) puts, trying to buck the tide! ... Good laugh department: For two weeks, I worked with a Forbes fact-checker, trying to cooperate with a hatchet job about me by columnist David Dreman. Lordy, was that a waste of time when you are dealing with a determined opponent. Sure enough, Dreman's piece is out, and the lead is the ultimate straw-man sandbag: "A pack of investors these days is downright contemptuous of managers who look at fundamentals." Of course, he is talking about me, and of course, that is a mischaracterization. I am contemptuous of chronic underperformers, as is the investing public, by the way. My real "crime" in the article? Cramer Berkowitz has only compounded at 30% after all fees for the last five years, which, while ahead of the S&P, is behind the Nasdaq! Well, excuse me! How have you done during that period, Mr. Dreman?

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