January 30, 2020 | Will They Ever Learn?

Amazon has taken flight in after-hours trading, up $230 at the moment, or about 9%, after earnings announced moments after the close beat analysts’ expectations.  You wonder who the geniuses are who do the expecting, since their estimates so often fall a few crucial pennies shy of whatever numbers are released. Perhaps these shills are paid to lowball their dartboard guesses, since the consequences of guessing wrong can be so lucrative for insiders.  If they are merely dumb, still dumber are traders who bet against after-hours eruptions that have become a staple of the bull market. These short-covering fools are the only source of buying power strong enough to goose stocks past heavy layers of supply. The more bets the fools pile up against the aging bull, the more decisive the stock market’s leaps.  The biggest winners, of course, are those who hold millions of shares in the small handful of companies revered by portfolio managers. The net worth of these zillionaires grows in mere minutes by sums that took a lifetime for robber barons like Carnegie, Astor, Rockefeller and Morgan to accumulate. Rather than treat himself to a good Cuban cigar, Bezos could buy, oh, New Zealand, or Ted Turner, or the Rockettes, to celebrate.

Rick Ackerman January 30th, 2020

Posted In: Rick's Picks

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