From The Capital Spectator:
RED INK FOR THE LONG RUN
The stock market crash of 1929 imposed financial penitence on equities for a generation. An unlucky investor who bought at the top in that fateful year had to wait for the mid-1950s to witness the Dow Jones Industrial Average reclaim to its old high. But at least the passage of two decades offered progress, albeit slowly. Compare that the dire state of the Japanese equity market, which suffers the mother of all bear markets. Tokyo stock prices, measured by the Nikkei 225 index, touched a 20-year low yesterday, reports the Associated Press. A generation of market pundits has been humbled by forecasts of an imminent, but ultimately elusive rebound in Japanese stocks. Twenty years of descending prices is harsh medicine, even by the bitter standards of Wall Street of late. Perhaps the only suffering in Japan that exceeds the pain inflicted on its stocks lies in the collapsed fortunes of the mantra that stocks will win in the long run.
Predicting the stock market is impossible. This is why I am businesspundit and not marketpundit. Analyzing markets involves much more speculation than analyzing businesses.
