Bear or Bullsh*t?

The markets are changing and depending on who you talk to (or which way the wind is blowing) we have a bear/bull market coming.  What you do with that information is up to you, but most “analysts” seem to think that the end is still a ways off and that the market is going to capitulate for months to come.

And, frankly, I’m okay with that.  The Dow was up over 200 points today – and to me that’s  a good thing.  But, if it drops 400 points tomorrow, that’s okay, too.  I’m neither bull nor bear, but I am a writer that wonders – what’s it matter?  Bear market?  Bull market?  Who really cares?

The answer to that is obvious – investors and news media care.  Investors so that they have an excuse for their successful guessing or misplaced optimism, and the news media because nothing sells like confusion (unless it’s blood, gore, or Britney Spears, of course.)  In this time, when consumers, investors, and even our leadership is shocked and running around like a three legged frog on the highway, bad news sells because in the absence of something positive, the average person is going to grab onto whatever they can find.

My take – bear or bullshit – it doesn’t matter; the media is going to help with your decision.

Ranter

It’s important to remember – even as we see another example of why a technologist can’t run a company – that Jerry Yang did bring a tremendous amount of value to the company he co-founded in 1995.  He’s been an asset and will continue to be involved in a technical and board level role.  It’s just unfortunate that his closeness to the company seems to have cost Yahoo the opportunity of the decade because of his resistance to be acquired by Microsoft for as much as $33/share or over $35 billion.  Today, with Yahoo trading up almost 9%, closing at $11.55, $33 seems really, really far away.

On a day where the Dow is up 1.83%, it would appear that Yahoo’s increase of 9% is a sign of approval from the often cutthroat market analysts.

“Yang’s departure will be viewed positively by investors as there was lingering distrust following the aborted Microsoft takeover,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote to clients.

From this perspective it seems obvious that companies are going to have to consider alternative forms of survival much more closely than ever before, because as the markets continue to contract – and even if they don’t – the chances of quickly returning to the high-profile years of past are slim.  Yahoo could have absorbed their technology and users into Microsoft and used Microsoft fortunes to expand their technology and tools to really be competitive with the likes of Google and AOL.  Now it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where a surviving Yahoo is able to grow and compete rather than becoming a simple niche in the free mail/news marketspace.

Ranter