Bottom fishing

Everyone is trying to call the bottom these days, in the economy, real estate, the stock market and everything in between. Witness Jim Cramer and his grilling on Jon Stewart's Daily Show to appreciate how this can be really risky business. Dick Bove, "star" analyst at Rochdale Research (who?) might be making the same mistake by disagreeing with Mike Mayo (Calyon's bank analyst) on Monday's Wall Street Journal:

Rising star Dick Bove - the Rochdale Research analyst who foretold much of the banking crisis - couldn't disagree more with Mayo. In restarting his coverage of Bank of America Corp. (BAC), he called the economy's bottom. (Bove, like Mayo, recently changed firms.) "My belief is that the economy has turned," Bove said in a note to investors. He said Bank of America's stock price will ultimately "return to its all-time highs."

Now, Dick may turn out to be right, however it's worth looking back a year when he called a "generational buying opportunity" on bank stocks, with BAC trading around $39 (hat tip: Karl Denninger). Yesterday's closing price: $7.06 (OK, 30% higher today due to WFC's bogus earnings). There is a sucker born every minute, as they say, especially in stock "research."