GOODBYE S&P 500 at 800. HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN SOON.

Unfortunately, nobody took me up on my dinner wager offer on March 9. And even after a ~2% decline last Friday, S&P500 sits north of 800. Ok, that was fun.  Hope everybody had the sense to sell before the weekend as there is no way that last Monday's boffo performance will be repeating itself anytime soon.

Cars, Inc. - FAIL.  Unfortunately, March 31 is not only the end of the 1Q, but the deadline for the auto companies to impress the "Task Force" why they should warrant an additional lifeline from the government. Would it be too obvious to suggest that this will just be a stark reminder that there is no coherent economic recovery plan? Are we supposed to take the news that GM CEO Rick Wagoner was finally (albeit politely) kicked to the curb as progress? Chrysler doesn't even have a reason to exist: the Daimler de-merger annihilated its engineering talent (shifted to Deutschland) and overseas sales presence. It's hard to see how the latest auto sales figures to be released this Wednesday will be anything, but ugly; not seeing "at least they beat consensus" potential, either. In other words Xenon headlights can't illuminate the proverbial end of the tunnel.

The day also marks the end of the Japanese fiscal year. I think it's safe to say the passing of this "marking up period" will also mean the appetite for fresh buying will have passed. Speaking of which, I still think Sony (SNE) is one of the worst well-known companies to own on the planet. Even its Playstation franchise has to compete head-on with cash-rich MSFT and highly profitable niche player Nintendo (NTDOY).

Guilty.  Unfortunately, we're coming upon corporate confession season in the United States and this will also not be pretty. In particular the stimulus pacakge is still a non-event and the outlook for the balance of 1H, let alone 1Q, will be brutal. So brutal that everybody should snap awake to the reality that any future positive GDP forecast will be a 2010 event at best; calling for an upturn by December is laughable. When it comes to bad news, I guess there is only so much appetite to heed the warnings of the Nouriel Roubini's of the world.

Telepresence.  Frustration is thy name for this industry. The benefits seem legion, but the results have always been piss poor. First after 9/11, and again today when travel budgets are truly viewed as an extravagence, I'm still waiting for pure plays like Polycom's (PLCM) of the world to perform (CSCO is a major player, too). I have seen some positive analyst comments on Tandberg (trades in Europe), but when will I get to eat the proof in the pudding? Alas, the bar to spend on telepresence increases rapidly as reasonable substitutes emerge and strenghten, and extracting non-critical (let alone essential) capital expenditures is just not happening right now.

The bottom line is its extremely difficult coming up with plausible leaders for the next bull market right now, which is why the market the last few weeks can only be considered a mere bear-market rally. Cash remains king.