Every morning we receive Reuters' "Before the Bell" note, a short summary of the day's news accompanied by links to several Reuters stories. This morning's edition included the following paragraph:
In a sign that the bull market's really over, The Wall Street Journal reports that Goldman Sachs has replaced famously optimistic short-term forecaster Abby Joseph Cohen with the more pessimistic David Kostin. The paper says Cohen will remain at Goldman, focusing on the bigger, longer-term picture.
Hmmmm. Is that, in fact, "a sign that the bull market's really over"? Or might it suggest, instead, a non-trivial bottom in street sentiment? Coupled with outrageously high readings on the CBOE's put-call ratios, unusually bearish readings from the Investors Intelligence survey, yesterday's resilience, and this morning's roaring start...we may have seen (at least) a tradable, near-term bottom.
All that said, this does seem like a bit of a strange prelude to a Fed policy announcement. So who knows what this afternoon holds. But we'd be more likely to think of the Cohen news as a lagging indicator. Not that we think her year-end S&P 1675 call makes any more sense now than it did three months ago...
Source
Lynn Thomasson, "Goldman's Cohen Replaced as Chief S&P 500 Forecaster," Bloomberg, March 17, 2008