This long weekend, sit back and give your head a shake. Is it any wonder why the small investor is terribly confused at these goings-on? The market, we say, is now marketing". Wall Street has become Madison Avenue. It is a game that plays people. Where, we ask, have the Jim Cramer's of the world gone? Where is the integrity in today's market commentary and reporting?

Regretfully, we know the answer: The Cramers have gone to make their gazillions by floating stock into this insane market environment, where even turkeys fly. Well, this Thanksgiving, let's see how many turkeys are flying at the retailers and the discount brokers and ;(several other market groups we have in view).

Ed. Note: Yes, New York's Cramer was worth a cool $242 million hours after his TheStreet.com IPO. Priced at $19, the stock opened at $61, went immediately to $71.25, then collapsed. Now with the stock at $15, he's worth a paltry $50 million. Chump change to many of the new Internet billionaires in California. But then, they're likely to soon take the same hit. Remember, it's only paper, and Jim Cramer is still in our opinion one of Wall Street's straightest shooters.

A thought crossed our mind, that if we were an astronaut, rocketing toward the heavens, we'd like to think NASA had put enough fuel in the tank to get us there. That's a problem today in the market. On Wednesday and Friday this week, investors were turning a blind eye to the Fed's clearly overt action of taking fuel out of the system. Investors have chosen instead to dream of the day when interest rates would stop going up, when the dollar would never fall, and when leading indicators of inflation would tick down. Ain't going to happen, except in your dreams.

Ed. Note: The Fed has continued to raise rates, and will again next year. NASDAQ Rockets will soon run out of fuel. The losers will of course blame Greenspan.

From Week 34-99: Aug 28 (11090.17)

This past week the Fed raised rates a second time since we assumed our neutral stance. Whenever the Fed is in a tightening mode, U.S. equities give less than average returns. Just because capital is pouring into stocks today, money flow could turn on a dime.

As we've often pointed out, suspending reality is a temporary phenomenon that cannot last if capital markets are to function properly in the future. We're waiting for the shoe to drop.

Ed. Note. This was the week we announced we had turned bearish. We don't regret it. We're not greedy.

From Week 33-99: Aug 21 (11100.61)

Two of the largest positions of Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's foremost value investor, are in the Dow stocks American Express and Coca-Cola. But where, we ask, is the value in AXP and KO?

Certainly, these stocks hardly qualify if one is to believe what is published as being a true Buffett value screen. Both are at or near the most over-priced, on a value basis, of all the Dow stocks.

Check the cnbc.com web-site if you question this.

As Berkshire Hathaway (i.e., Buffett), at March 31, 1999, holds 200 million KO shares and 50.5 million AXP shares, maybe new investors should instead look to astrology for a source of Buffett's investing rationale, rather than the sound investing principles he expounds?

Let's see, by date of incorporation, KO is a Virgo;

Because T @46.88 (a Pisces) and GM @63.13 (a Libra) are also doing badly recently, we even thought to check out the astrology charts there.

Based on good investment logic, we are long just three Dow stocks (T, GM and S), but all three seem to be missing the current rally. Something's awry.

It would appear that with Jupiter and Uranus aligned in their present positions, investors have for the moment suspended reality, preferring instead an out-of-this-world experience.

Soon, we think, rather than reaching the sky, this stock market has great possibilities of crashing back to earth, as it did Monday, October 19, 1987. Did you know the entire Dow 30 Average dropped a full 30.0 percent from its Friday high to Black Monday's low?

To give newbie investors an idea how serious market crashes can be, think of the following one-day drops from highs to lows: IBM 27.8%, GE 29.2%, WMT 33.6%, AA 25.8%, CHV 29.6%, IP 28.9%, UK 23.3%, MMM 30.6%, MO 18.2%, HWP 26.5%, PG 34.4%, T 29.5%, XON 34.8%, MCD 22.3% and JNJ 24.0%.

We repeat: this value was lost to investors, not in a year or a month, but in a single day! If you don't believe it, check out the historical charts/quotes at bigcharts.com.

For many blue-chip Dow stocks there was even no let-up the day following Black Monday. A sampling shows that, over a two-day period, CHV, UK and JNJ dropped 42.9% from their high to low price, on average. Horrifying.

Today, investors who have never suffered through an experience like October 1987 are complaining about an AOL, or a YHOO, or AMZN, dropping these percentages over the period of a month or two. Concerned maybe but not yet frightened. Maybe reality will set in if and when they see an AXP crashing from 140 to 90, or a MMM from 100 to 70, over an even briefer period.

If an IBM can rise from 83 to 139 in three months, why do investors think it couldn't happen in reverse in three days?

Ed. Note: IBM did subsequently fall from 139 to 90 shortly after we wrote this article. Some readers were impressed.

There is a precedent, and as we all know and some of us fear, past is prologue.

From Week 32-99: Aug 14 (10973.65)

For years we've made the case that the market is a game that plays people. Without enough self-discipline to control one's emotions, an investor will never be successful. He or she will simply be conned by every ‘head fake' and outright deception that Wall Street can serve up in their constant pursuit of greed.

Every individual investor has to have a plan and to work that plan. We'd like our Dow 30 Journal to carry a guarantee of investment success, but that's not possible. What is absolutely certain however is that with just two things " facts and common sense " anybody can take on Wall Street and win.