Yesterday, the DJIA closed at a new record high, at 15,056.20 while the S&P500 closed at 1,625.96.
While I keep hearing some people claim there is an excess of giddiness, please excuse me for failing to see it. My frame of reference is the 1999-2000 top, and I certainly do not see anything remotely resembling that sort of sentiment. We cannot say it even resembles the 2007 top.
Remember the Dow 10,000 hats on CNBC? The insane expense accounts, lavish spending? The forecasts of Dow 36,000? In 1999, the nonstop media coverage of markets resembled a home team making it to the Superbowl or World Series. Stocks had become the hottest sport there was. You could not attend a cocktail party or BBQ without the conversation turning to tech names doubling and tripling.
We have none of that now:
No Dow 15,000 hats on TV.
No media trucks lining the street outside the NYSE or Nasdaq to cover the milestone.
Hardly any mention of it on the nightly news.
Kevin Lane forwarded a note from a friend:
“it took until 6:42 pm to get to it, which was a 5 second mention with just a studio read by Brian Williams. No remote from the floor, and they didn’t bother to drag in one of the stooges from CNBC (in one of those corporate co-branding efforts) to breathlessly tell us all what it all means.“
This indifference is not the sort of thing typically seen at tops.
Look, I am not saying you have to see lines of blow being snorted off of a $2,000 a night call girl’s ass to say things have gotten irrationally exuberant, but how about a little something?
As we have been saying since 2009, this continues to the most hated rally in market history. Until that changes, I suspect it has farther to run . . .
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