When financial press sees trouble, maybe it's time to buy

As a rule, journalists are not great market timers. The most notorious blunder was a Business Week story in August 1979 that was headlined "Death of Equities" (a tad off), but you don't have to go that far back to locate some seriously misguided conclusions. There was very little challenge to the run-up in home prices (admittedly a tough climate to question conventional wisdom), and these days, the media has tended to be overly glum in its coverage of the economy - so much so that longtime market watcher Ed Yardeni wonders whether it has become a contrarian indicator. Via the WSJ:

Mr. Yardeni's view: "It may be time to be a contrarian. If the financial press is losing all hope in the long-term outlook, then maybe the future will be better than expected by the consensus of doubters."

I'm not saying anything, but it just so happens that the stock market has been up three days in a row.