Bove rattles market?, sends it down

There it is in the market wrap-ups at Bloomberg, Yahoo Business, Fidelity, and Schwab. "Influential" analyst Dick Bove sent the market tumbling in the last hour after downgrading Wells Fargo to a "sell". There may be something more to this story, or it may simply indicate the hair trigger this market is on.

Bove's strength seems to be that he is just about the last man standing among the group of bank analysts that ruled from the late '70's to the Spitzer castration of the research function. By working at minor firms for the last 15 years and being satisfied with his Florida lifestyle Bove stayed beneath the radar screen and now has become "influential". That Bove was influential at some point in his career is likely, maybe when he was at the rough C.J. Lawrence firm. When I first met him in the late '80's he was already on the fringe of power, using off-base rumors and contrarian calls to get attention, attention that he craved. Today the old analyst skills of picking the right and most vulnerable market spot to get the most attention and catering in a certain way to clients is a "strength" that few have, and Dick still knows the old ways. At least that's my guess and why I think that there was ammunition already locked and loaded that put momentum behind his call today. He may be "influential" and he may now be picked up by CNBC and others as a smooth grey haired voice of experience, but broad respect for Bove was never there among institutional investors. Hedge funds may be another matter, and some of his old C.J. Lawrence cronies are still big in that investor segment.

Dick is doing well these days, so good for him. Still, there's more than meets the eye here, so I think.