Final Word from Tuesday, May 12, 2009
There's plenty of money to be made in the "recovery" that is sweeping the globe, but there's also plenty of money to be lost. What we're experiencing might indeed be a turnaround, or it might instead be a dead-cat bounce, a bull trap, a sucker's rally or whatever other expressive term you might want to use for a false hope. Can you name anything the optimistic politicians and bankers have done to actually correct the fundamental problems facing Western civilization, instead of merely masking them? When George Soros speaks about a recovery that regains half of what was lost on the way down, you'd better watch your wallet. Czechs seduced by the euphoria might want to trust the words of CEO Laurent Goutard of Komerční banka, who said the CR hasn't hit bottom yet. That doesn't mean there won't be opportunity. It just means that if you don't know when to get out, it might be better not to get in.[Czech Republic FAZ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]
Glossary of difficult words
a fool and his money (are soon parted) - a foolish person spends money carelessly and will soon be broke;
dead-cat bounce - a temporary recovery from a prolonged decline or bear market, after which the market continues to decline;
bull trap - a false signal that a declining trend in a stock or index has reversed and is heading upwards when, in fact, the security will continue to decline;
sucker - a gullible or easily deceived person;
sucker’s rally - a temporary rise in a stock or in the market, giving the "suckers" time to get in, after which the market or stock falls;
to seduce - to attract someone into a course of action that is inadvisable or foolhardy;
to get out (of the market) - to exit, sell one’s investments.