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The Amateur / Vad Yazvinski3/19/2008 12:01 AM ET

It's time to bet on a bounce

Reassured that the Fed will step in whenever ill winds blow, the market looks ready to keep moving up. I'm shifting more money to the long side.

  • If cash remains after above trades, divide the proceeds and buy shares of Ultra Health Care ProShares (RXL, news, msgs) and Ultra QQQ ProShares (QLD, news, msgs).

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"The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning." -- Ivy Baker Priest

It seems like we finally saw a healthy amount of fear in the marketplace, and in my book, that's a good sign. The Dow has successfully retested the January lows, so in order for me to preserve some of the gains, I need to switch to a slightly more bullish mode. Thus I will lighten up my short load.

My guess is that during the next several months, there will still be numerous opportunities for good short plays. But since everyone believes now that Fed is going to step in every time there is big sell-off, markets might just continue to find reasons for recovery.

Some other quick thoughts on the market:

I can't stop getting confused and amazed at just how silly some stocks/investors can behave in the short term. As I said in my previous posts, I fully believe that the market, while semi-efficient in general, tends to overshoot in each direction when some stock or sector all of sudden gets "hot" or "cold."

The "craze du jour" is definitely agriculture stocks. Undoubtedly, the ethanol craze is forcing wheat and soy prices to new multiyear highs most every day. But does one really believe that we are going to run out of food? Come on, let’s be rational. The world’s population has not increased dramatically in the last two years, and the Chinese are still consuming a lot of rice. Ethanol companies are hardly making any profits, and many will go bankrupt soon. Do all the companies in the sector deserve fantasy valuations? I don't think so. More on that in later posts.

I also don’t really believe Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Co. when they keep reiterating that the U.S. economy will somehow avoid recession. Everyone is confident that the Fed actually knows something we don't. Yes, with thousands of staffers on the payroll, that could be the case. But consider another fact: The Fed's statements about what it thinks the economy is going to do are not realistic. It simply can't be too pessimistic, period! Keep that in mind.

The Fed's job description includes guiding the economy out of recession. Thus, any express statements supporting the view that the U.S. economy is heading into one would make it end up there quickly. So my advice is to ignore Fed projections and statements and look at actions. Cutting rates by 75 basis points with inflation at a 17-year high is not designed to simply "provide insurance" against a slowdowns.

As a matter of full disclosure, I went 100% long the market on Monday with many of the above stocks bought in both my personal and Marketocracy portfolios. Stay safe, and e-mail me at SkepticalCapitalist@gmail.com.

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