Investor's Business Daily Mocks Diane Sawyer's Fear of Bull Markets

Photo of Rich Noyes.

Back on April 23, as NewsBuster Scott Whitlock noted at the time, ABC’s Diane Sawyer fretted about the supposedly sky-high stock market. “Is this the thrill before the meltdown?” she panicked. “What should you do this morning to protect your money?” ABC's on-screen graphic ridiculously wondered: "Is Unstoppable Market Good or Bad?"

Today, an Investor’s Business Daily editorial mocks Sawyer’s Chicken Little approach. “We’re still waiting for the ‘meltdown’ that ‘Good Morning America’ stock guru Diane Sawyer was warning us about a month (and 600 Dow points) ago, when she devoted a segment to what we should do ‘to protect our money.’”

An excerpt from today’s editorial, “Diane Doesn’t Like the Market (Pass It On):

Hearing what passes for market analysis these days, we don't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh, because so many are scared into keeping their powder dry, or cry because they're missing out on so much.

We don't know how else to put it: The media are not only biased in how they cover the stock market and economy, they're oblivious to the relationship between the two....

We thought of the disconnect again over the weekend, as we surveyed what was obviously another strong week for stocks but noted that most of the coverage on the business pages dwelled on, yes, gas prices, the housing market ("American Nightmare," howled one headline) and the boom in corporate buyouts by private-equity firms. This last development, we learned, was "coming at the expense of . . . average investors as well as workers, lenders and perhaps the economy as a whole."

Yet here we are with the market's most important benchmark — the S&P 500 index — getting ready to take out its early-2000 high, as the Dow has done already.

Guess we're still waiting for the "meltdown" that "Good Morning America" stock guru Diane Sawyer was warning us about a month (and 600 Dow points) ago, when she devoted a segment to what we should do "to protect our money."

Savvy investors, of course, will file the money that's being withheld from the market on Diane's advice under the heading "dry powder for future rallies."

But that doesn't make it any less sad that many investors have missed the latest move because they are fed a diet of negative news and listen to people who wouldn't know a worldwide economic boom if they saw one.


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Don't be so critical, Diane w

Don't be so critical, Diane was only repeating her warnings from the Clinton Bubble of 2000, right?

Right.

Good Lord, can someone please

Good Lord, can someone please tell me, who does not benefit from a strong stock market?

Those who have sold short.In

Those who have sold short.

In a manner of speaking this is the Democratic Party.  A weak market and a weak economy are their political friends.  One could say that the Democratic Party is invested in poverty.  Without poverty, they lack one of their largest vote blocs:  indigent people and their caretakers sucking the public tit.

The problem is that some ma

The problem is that some massive risks are being taken, and when counterparties (LTCM & Amaranth were only the beginning...) disappear, derivatives cease becoming a useful financial instrument and start us down the road -- once again -- to "too big to fail" bailouts, a-la CitiBank's idiotic mess in Mexico the taxpayers had to clean up. IOW, Dianne's an idiot, but IBD is not any more likely than Dianne to properly-cover this pending disaster until it's an actual disaster.
JMR

Dianne's self-fulfilling, sky

Dianne's self-fulfilling, sky-is-falling prophecy will take place eventually, we just don't know when and to what degree.  The problem is our MSM cannot decipher between a bicycle accident and a 40-car pileup.  So she can continue to beat the drums of impending doom until a classic, mid-cycle economic slowdown transpires and she can tell us how wise and all-knowing she is.

But will she say that it's due to a lagged impact from spikes in interest rates and energy prices?  Will she make a correlation between consumer spending (which is 70% of U.S. economic activity) and housing market declines?  Hell no!  These cycles have been going on for ages, but all she'll care about is finding a way to say "I told you so" in the maximum amount of words possible.  Then we'll quietly go about working toward new market highs until the next Chicken Little comes along.

I rate Sawyers statement as a

I rate Sawyers statement as at least a strong hold signal. If not an out and out buy signal. If she does it again. Definately a buy signal.

Reason. The best time to get into and be in the market is when the idiots think it's the worst place. Best time to get out. Is when they think it's great.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”   H.L. Mencken

Maybe you can start a Danbo M

Maybe you can start a Danbo MSM Contrarian Fund. Consider me your first investor.

Unfortunately: I'd have to st

Unfortunately: I'd have to start working again. No more long mornings working in the garden. Nor more (or fewer) trips ot the Smokies and Blue Ridge, or Florida. Fewer or shorter dive trips.

I'm keeping and adding to my own investments. But someone else will have to run and manage the MSM Contrarian fund. Time to enjoy life. You can make it the Mulerider MSM Contrarian Fund.

Time to play. And dance.

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”   H.L. Mencken

Your comment about the Clin

Your comment about the Clinton Bubble got me curious, so I checked the archive. Here's what Good Morning America worried about back in January 2000:

Charles Gibson: "The booming stock market seems to be producing millionaires left and right. Enough to give some people who are earning very quick money, giving them the worry that their children overnight might become spoiled brats. In fact, it's led to a new cottage industry. Investment houses have started providing psychological help to teach nouveau riche kids that money doesn't grow on trees. There's actually a name for this trend. It's called 'affluenza.'"

That was two months before the market tanked.

Rich..

Rich. thank you. thank you. and that is the way the left seems to remember the late 90's bubble economy, do they not? Charles Gibson had plenty of company, also.

I truly believe that a polling today would show that a broad majority of voters would now look back, and rememember that it was GW Bush who brought down that stock market bubble, and threw all into reverse. A polling amonst the MSM and the Blue folks, would show a great majority of folks who have been fooled.

Fortunatley (although the media will not share it with the public) we have some rather meaty analysis of record from the far left.

An excerpt  (my bold) from Bursting Bubbles BY DEAN BAKER 5.9.03

In 2000, President Clinton could legitimately boast of the “best economy in 30 years.” Unemployment was low, wages were rising at all income levels, and the poverty rate was headed downward at a rapid pace. But after President Bush took office in 2001, the economy fell into recession, shedding jobs and causing real wage growth to slow and eventually stop altogether.

A convenient story explains this sharp economic reversal. According to the script, Clinton eliminated the deficit through progressive tax increases and spending restraint. This deficit reduction lowered interest rates and spurred an investment boom, which was the basis for the extraordinary growth of the late ’90s. Then Bush came into office and quickly squandered the surplus with his tax cuts to the rich and military build-up. As a result, the deficit skyrocketed and the economy tanked.

It’s a good story, but the reality is quite different. The Clinton boom was built on three unsustainable bubbles. One of them, the stock bubble, has already burst. The other two bubbles—the dollar bubble and the housing bubble—are still with us. The dollar bubble is starting to deflate, and the housing bubble is perhaps just now reaching its peak. These bubbles created the basis for the 2001 recession and the economy’s continuing period of stagnation.

The basic facts of the economy’s rapid deterioration over the last two years are widely known. After creating an average of more than 3 million jobs a year from 1996 to 2000, the economy has lost more than 2 million jobs since March 2001. This reversal has been associated with a rise in the unemployment rate from an average of 4 percent in 2000 to 6 percent today. The increase among African-Americans has been even larger, rising from 7.6 percent in 2000 to 10.9 percent in April, and larger yet for African-American teens, with the unemployment rate rising from just over 24 percent in 2000 to peaks as high as 35 percent in March. While real wages were growing at close to a 2 percent annual pace in 2000, wage growth has recently fallen to zero for most workers.

The economy’s reversal was associated with a plunge in the stock market. The S&P 500 fell from a peak of more than 1,500 in March 2000, to lows of less than 800 in the past year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq took an even sharper plunge, falling from a peak of more than 5,000 in March 2000 to under 1,200 last summer. Adding to this picture is the reversal in the budget situation. The surplus of $236 billion in 2000 has given way to a deficit that may reach $500 billion in 2003.

[Ah.. even the liberal economic experts understand that the job losses and the return to large federal deficits had nothing to do with Bush. - gary]

Of course, the stock market downturn should not be included among the economic failings of the last two and a half years. That downturn really was just a healthy return to reality. The long stretch of new peaks that the market hit in the ’90s should have been a warning of bad times ahead to anyone paying attention. Instead the boom was widely celebrated as evidence of a new era of unbounded prosperity. The failure by the Federal Reserve Board or the Clinton administration to take actions to stem the growth of the stock bubble laid the grounds for a train wreck; the only question up in the air was when it would hit...

..In short, any serious economic analyst should have been able to recognize the stock bubble of the late ’90s. The fact that those in positions of responsibility either failed to recognize the bubble or chose to ignore it was a mistake with enormous consequences.

The stock market bubble added more than $8 trillion of paper wealth to the economy. This stimulated the economy in two ways. First, when families see the value of their stock portfolios rise, they spend more, since they feel less need to put money aside for retirement or their kids’ education. Just as the textbooks would predict, consumption boomed and savings fell through the floor in the late ’90s and 2000.

The Clinton legacy - the fantasy "feel-good" years. Nothing of substance, only a wild fling - an orgy of waste, I'd say.

Meanwhile we see books like &

Meanwhile we see books like "Sleepwalking Through History:  America During the Reagan Years" published about a President who revitalized the American economy, rebuilt the military, and brought down the Soviet Union in a mere 8 years.

Reagan = Sleepwalking Through History

Clinton = Nothing Less Than the Second Coming

Amazing.

...people who wouldn't know

...people who wouldn't know a worldwide economic boom if they saw one.

Does that economic boom have a 'D' in front of it? They probably have trouble seeing anything that starts with an 'R' (like... reality).

I think this does show a big difference between the left and right. I've yet to see "the right" deny something good happening when democrats are in charge (like during the clinton reign) but "the left" seems to be literally blind when it comes to anything good their opponents might do. Really, any lefties out there tell me: Do you HAVE to believe that anyone who disagrees with you are ignorant or totally evil?

Be sure to get your daily Fred Thompson Fact!

Kinda points out that these &

Kinda points out that these "newsies" know how to ask questions, but don't look for answers. Then, when they don't understand the answer, they just laugh it off as some crackpot "theory".  Watch out Diane - rosedude is looking for a new gig - and she "knows", 'cause she can Google it!

There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad V

The mentality of the MSM is a

The mentality of the MSM is about the Jr. High level...(no offense you Jr. High-ers out there) but there is logic to it.  i.e., Since nothing can be good when a republican is president - it must be only temporary...

Diane Sawyer

Why does Diane always have the facial expression of somebody having a large cumbersome object inserted into their A$$? She looks like an idiot. The "ohhh my gaaaad" look. Sorry for the visual, but seriously.. How stupified can an "expert" look ALL of the time? Also; where does she get the notion of "thrill before the melt-down"? This might be an indicator of how she handles HER money, but not most other people. Stupid is too nice a word for that superficial gas bag.

Islam should have it's religious status revoked until it can prove it's not a hate group.

When someone like Sawyer make

When someone like Sawyer makes an ass out of herself in order to shill for the Democarts, it is nice that someone or some publication will mock her.  Good for IBD.