How to Operate the Market

1) Be president.
2) Screw up the economy.
3) Let bellweathers like LEH and BAC decline and threaten to go out of business and let their stocks hit rock-bottom.
4) Get phone calls from big money managers saying they've entered into positions in those stocks and that the coast is now clear.
5) Announce a plan that will have the effect of getting those stocks to open at prices which mean no one else can now think of getting into them.