Alan Abelson at Barron's.......

For such a gifted writer who has such brilliant command of the English language he unfortunately has probably "lost" more money for investors than the S & L crisis, the 1986 bond market break, the 1987 stock market debacle, Bill Clinton's internet market bubble and Enronesque failings combined. You see, he is always "out" of an overvalued stock market. He is what Steve Leslie refers to as a "nattering nabob of negativity"! Good news doesn't sell in America. Not on Fox, not on CNN, only on the Disney Channel. America has this penchant for gloom and doom. There are family members who have it, friends, acquaintances and apparently everyone who reads his weekly rant in Barron's and believes it.

Lets get some things straight folks. Bear markets are followed by bull markets. There is a bear market going on today on Wall Street which is nothing more than temporarily lower stock prices. The stock market will go much higher in your lifetime. Listening to a broker or financial advisor talk you into selling your stock market exposure and buying bonds does two things. It assures him and his firm of some fat commissions and it assures long term, tremendous loss of purchasing power in your portfolio. Maybe the SEC should require that Barrons put a disclaimer on his column every week. No, that's not the answer either, because investors have every right to be wrong and if they wouldn't sell with such fear and panic it wouldn't allow for lower levels of stock prices. My old friend in LaJolla, Bill Gritz, the finest 80-year old ocean swimmer I have ever known, told me once, "Dean, buy them when there is NO good news in the newspapers about stocks, you'll make plenty of money".