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BACK in the middle of August, daytime CNBC addicts—who include many of the investing public—were being told that their world was on the brink of chaos, that Life as We Know It was at risk of being hit by a financial asteroid. The standard-issue doomsayers, all of them friends of mine, were being wheeled out and planted in front of studio cameras to comment on the imminent bear market.

All this was prompted by a 10.1 per cent decline in the S&P 500 index. The S&P was still up by more then 12 percent for the year, but so conditioned had investors become to a permanent bull market that a correction that was the equivalent of a summer-camp hazing was enough to make them cry for their mommies.

JD

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John Dizard

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BACK in the middle of August, daytime CNBC addicts—who include many of the investing public—were being told that their world was on the brink of chaos, that Life as We Know It was at risk of being hit by a financial asteroid. The standard-issue doomsayers, all of them friends of mine, were being wheeled out and planted in front of studio cameras to comment on the imminent bear market.

All this was prompted by a 10.1 per cent decline in the S&P 500 index. The S&P was still up by more then 12 percent for the year, but so conditioned had investors become to a permanent bull market that a correction that was the equivalent of a summer-camp hazing was enough to make them cry for their mommies.