We didn't get it. It took a last minute buy program to lift the Dow to a narrow gain of 84.77. Friday's stock market action indicates that exuberance is ebbing, succumbing to a slow trickle down change of trend. We appear to be witnessing that now. Lingering doubts are slowly entering the system, but the prevailing mood is still of a positive nature.
Hope still rings eternal among investors, but the decibel level is a little lower.
The bond market is a different story. It is fear, not hope, that reigns here. Traders now see the glass as half empty. We mentioned in that same March column that sentiment that builds over a short time frame changes trend rapidly. We are seeing the beginning of this sentiment trend change in Internet stocks, and we are seeing the full effects of this rapid mood swing in the bond market where sentiment has turned fully bearish.