HAVE STOCKS HIT BOTTOM?

Charles Hugh Smith submits: The cliche will be wrong--bells will toll at the bottom in housing and stocks.

By Rougemont: Most stocks trade in a predictable range, so it makes sense to be aware of the level a stock is at in regards to this range before buying or selling. Traders and investors can make significant gains if they buy at the bottom of the recent trading range and sell at the top. With that in mind, I have identified three companies that have very solid fundamentals and earnings, which have also recently hit the bottom of the recent trading ranges.

Wall Street suffered the slings and arrows of one of the most tumultuous years in stock market history in 2009, but has managed a stunning recovery and is poised to end the year with some optimism.The market is closing out the year with solid gains, but that hardly tells the story of a dramatic near-meltdown for the main indexes followed by a rebound that capped the final year of a "lost decade" for stocks.

The bandwagon’s getting crowded. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Jefferies have all increased their targets for U.S stocks within the last week. Not a bear in the bunch. The financial media have moved from touting new highs to rooting out the last skeptic standing. Famously bearish analysts are coming around to U.S. stocks at an alarming rate, prompting headlines like this one: “Another Wall Street Bear Throws in the Towel”

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog, Five full years on from the financial crisis, stock markets have regained lost ground and are within striking distance of new record highs. Yet, it’s only NOW, after all the gains from the bottom have been made, that the investing crowd is starting to put money back into stocks.

Water is wet. Sky is blue. Spring follows Winter. All things we hold as true and yet, it appears the last of these has managed to foil the best laid plans of Dick's Sporting Goods amid their dismal earnings call. The company at once blamed 'warmer weather' than expected for shrinkage in its outerwear sales and because "it didn't look like Winter was going to come," the firm then blamed excessively cold weather and its lack of outerwear inventory to meet those needs.

The Pragmatic Capitalist submits: It’s looking like the banks perp walks couldn’t have started at a much worse time for Wall Street. In mid-January, financial reform discussions sparked a swift 10% bank decline, but as reform looked increasingly less likely the banks rallied and they rallied big. Since the February bottom the banks surged 26%. It was the largest rally without a 10% decline since last summer.

The search of a market bottom likely will continue through the rest of the year and into 2009, as signs  emerge that a turning point is not yet upon Wall Street.