The Making of a Market Guru: Forbes Presents 25 Years of Ken Fisher

Chapter 26. 2009: 25 Years and Counting

"The stock market is a discounter of known information. It is not a barometer of the current state of the economy but a guess about where the economy (and corporate profits) will be 6 to 24 months in the future. . . . Stock market bottoms happen, and then stocks jolt upward, while the economy keeps getting worse—sometimes by a lot and for a long time."

—"Be a Bad News Bull," January 12, 2009

"Bear markets have been typically followed by bull markets in a V-shaped pattern. The steeper and bigger the decline, the sharper and bigger the subsequent bull move. The few exceptions to this pattern in the past century have involved the emergence of completely different bad forces than the ones that created and contributed to the bear market."

—"Anticipate the V," February 16, 2009

As 2009 began Ken was six months away from completing 25 years of columns, the basis of this book. He was also riding as low as he ever had in terms of being right. In 2008, he had been bullish when the right thing was to be bearish, and his stock picks lagged the market (one of only three years when he had lagged in the 13 years, as of this point, Forbes had been measuring.) But in 2009, he would be not only right on market direction and right on sectors (down to the fine details), but also his stock picks had their best year ever—more than doubling the S&P 500's return. Not a bad way to close a quarter century.

In the broader world, 2009 was notable for many reasons. Barack ...