The Big Picture for the Week of December 19, 2004

Does anyone else wonder what happened to the buying power that was supposed to come from that huge Microsoft dividend? I was skeptical from the start that there would be a Microsoft induced rally, but I could have been wrong. It turned out there was no lasting effect.

I am shocked that so many Wall Street folks actually thought this could happen. If you read my thoughts on it from last month you'll see my analysis was not that clever, but it was obvious.

This is a theme that has repeated itself on this blog. Big events rarely turn out as expected. I wrote something similar about expensing options earlier this week.

For a long time, I have thought that the market would have some sort of rally, that would have started by now with real oomph, into year end as all sorts of managers would be playing catch up. Well we are starting to run out of time on that one being right. If the market does make some sort of move in the next two weeks, it could be exaggerated due to a lack of volume. At this point I think a move of 3% or more in either direction in the next two weeks could be unwound in the first week or two of January. We'll see.

Last week on Forbes on Fox I picked Zebra Tech (ZBRA) and Australia New Zealand Bank (ANZ). Both names had a good week after I picked them, which is ok but my time horizon was longer than a week. But I am glad that neither one blew up so I look like a complete moron. Funny stuff. By the way I have owned both names for clients for a while but I continue to buy them for new clients, which is an important point that I did not get to make. Too many people come on shows to tout names they haven't bought in months.

I'm not much of an anti-TV zealot but that sort of thing does bug me.