Bear Mountain Bull

It’s time again for a little BMB R&R, especially with the market behaving as bizarrely as it’s been. Maybe if we stop watching it start to behave a little better…

Posting will be very light and variable over the course of this week, but we’ll put up an open thread each market day for our readers to comment on the day’s market activity or to post any interesting links they might run across.

Check the space below for whatever the latest might be during this ‘off’ time, and please visit the various sites in the ‘Links’ and ‘Regular Stops’ for up-to-date market news and analysis.

BMB will be back in full swing by next weekend.

What a great line. Here’s The Big Picture today on billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, who is nearing 90:

Let’s be honest: He shouldn’t even be buying green bananas.

Barry breaks the news to you gently: you are NOT a billionaire. So maybe you shouldn’t be trying to invest like one:

When Michael Dell buys $70 million worth of his own stock, might he have an agenda besides the capital appreciation of what amounts to a pittance to him? Dell is the 4th richest man in the United States, with net assets of ~$20 billion. His namesake company is under assault — from HP, the financial press, the investment analyst community.

Might he have a different agenda than you or I?

The bottom line is this: Why do billionaires make certain bids for companies and other specific investments? Is it to save for a house, put together a college fund for their kids, try to outpace inflation, make sure they have a financially secure retirement?

Or, might they have a different agenda entirely, involving propping up a weakened company, creating a personal legacy or, (Dare I even say it?) stroke their own egos a bit?

Unless you can invest on the same terms, for the same reasons, and achieve the same objectives, its foolhardy to try to parallel what the Billionaires do . . .

Notes on the latest moves in the industry groups:

• As with the sector charts yesterday, many of the group charts look similar to those of the major indices.
• This week, all groups were up more than a percent-and-a-half. Can you say ‘overbought’? We’ll need either some time or a little pullback in prices to work off the overbought condition.
• Some significant divergence between the winners and losers over the past 4 and 8 weeks, however.
• After such a strong week, it’s interesting to note which groups lagged - mainly tech and health care.
• For a more detailed breakdown of group movement over various time periods, try Prophet.net’s Industry Rankings page.