Between Awful and Worse
Barrons | March 7, 2009 | Alan Abelson
OBAMA THE ORACLE?
The president last week took a break from the arduous task of carrying the world on his slender shoulders to offer a prophecy that could only warm the cockles of Wall Street's heart (and we're taking it strictly on faith that it has one). He ventured that this was a good time to buy stocks.
Some old Street hand obviously tutored him on the art of stock-market forecasting because he immediately qualified the recommendation by stressing it was being rendered strictly for the long term. And like the most seasoned strategist, he sedulously neglected to define "long term."
If he meant 10 years, we can't quarrel too much, provided that anybody acting on the advice makes sure to have an ample stash of painkillers to see him through until 2019. It could be that President Obama, a scholarly soul, was eager to emulate one of his predecessors, Ronald Reagan, who early in his administration -- when the market was more or less supine after a nasty fall -- declared it was time to turn the bull loose.
Of course, Mr. Reagan offered his cheerful exhortation on a visit to the New York Stock Exchange, and it's conceivable that, gregarious to a fault, he was merely trying to buck up the assembled traders, brokers and assorted and sordid hangers-on. It could be, too, that Bill Casey, then head of the Central Intelligence Agency, who was a notorious and compulsive speculator (it got so that folks began to think that CIA stood for "Casey's Investing Again"), had prevailed upon his chief to give the market a thumbs-up.
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