TEN THOUSAND: SNOOKERED AGAIN?

When I lived in Philadelphia,Fred Sherman had a radio show about "the market." He came to my attention because of the distinctive, sing song quality of his voice. He would say often, "The market has no where to go but up." His timing made me think of Burgess Meredith of "78 Trombones" fame. I did not know Sherman, although he and I would meet sometimes at meetings. When I did encounter him, I would make light of his prediction that the market had no where to go but up to 10,000 and higher.

This fascinated me because at the time, I was still under the impression that stocks and bonds were traded and bought because investors wanted to buy into a company's plans for research, development, new production or ideas, and management stability. I was sure people with an understanding of what it takes to maintain and grow sound, fair markets surely would not be snookered into a scheme to simply move paper.

But this weekend, as I heard the news that people on the Exchange were wearing white caps with black 10,000 on them I thought of Sherman. Funny, I thought we had learned our lesson. Yet, here we are, snookered again!