Get a T.O., Baby Bulls

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File this one under the “contrary indicators” category.

I was just watching ESPN, and heard famous college basketball enthusiast/love-him-or-hate-him color commentator Dick Vitale describing the college basketball season as an up and down roller coaster ride. He then said, and this is pretty much a direct quote,

“Up and down, up and down. It’s like the stock market…No, wait! It’s not like the stock market. All the stock market does these days is go up, up, up!”

Now, I have to wonder how many non-traders/non-market followers watching the telecast just kind of took that comment in stride, or even nodded their heads in agreement with all of the media coverage this past week about Dow 12,000. I, for one, wanted to jump out of my chair and short every equity known to mankind. In and of itself, though, it is always tough to gauge just how valid a contrary indicator based on sentiment is on “Main Street.” However, I must say that the Dick Vitale comment conjured up memories of that famous quote by Bernard Baruch that he knew it was time to sell at the height of the roaring 20’s, before the 1929 crash, when his shoeshine boy was giving him stock tips. Mind you, I do not see another crash, or even deep bear market, happening anytime soon.

One thing is for sure, though: When you couple the heightened non-financial media coverage of the stock market for much of last week, followed by the technical damage that was done to many key charts on Friday, I would find it awfully tough not to be cautious on the long side here.