O Cramer acabou de publicar um artigo intimamente ligado com isto.
"Never Mind the Fundamentals, Think Perception"
By James J. Cramer
06/23/2003 02:47 PM EDT
"The Fed's logic could be self-fulfilling here. It won't possibility let the economy falter here, which is what it would be doing if it cut rates at this point. It is allowing fund managers to stay in, to continue to own, regardless of current weakness.
Take the column I just wrote about Lucent. When the Fed says "We will do everything in our power to make things come back," the fund manager who isn't a skeptic rationalizes that Lucent is worth holding on to.
Of course, the skeptical manager says, "Come on, what we need isn't lower rates, we need more capacity taken out and more mergers to eliminate redundancy. We need more jobs created, which won't happen until people feel better about the economy, something that a rate cut won't do."
But before we "succumb" to skeptical thinking, recall that the average mutual fund manager is anything but skeptical. The average mutual fund manager believes he is being paid to suspend critical beliefs in order to satisfy his clients' desire to have equity exposure.
Given that these people will have still more money thrown at them when the cut occurs, because a cut will make investors feel they are losing money by keeping funds in cash, you have to say that a 25-basis-point rate cut nets out as a positive for stocks, even as it doesn't net out as a positive for the economy.
This is still one more sign that what matters to stocks isn't the fundamentals but the perception of the fundamentals in the eyes of those who control vast pools of "always on" money.
Shockingly, after all we have been through, this disconnect is still not understood by bulls or bears (or at least. isn't stated as such). The bulls still mouth that things are cheap; the bears still act with outrage that the fundamentals aren't winning out.
What a joke.
It is what it is. The times in my career that the stocks, short-term, have reacted properly to the true fundamentals can be counted on one hand.
This is not a mathematical scheme of rigor or science, like blackjack, craps or betting on football games. It is a game of flimsy reasoning and varying degrees of too much optimism, followed by bouts of dire depression.
Those who think there is more to it really should take up another occupation. You are too pure for your own good. "
(in
www.realmoney.com)