Bloomberg made one announcement in the morning only to make a complete turnaround in the evening. It announced during the starting hours that price increases by United Technologies and Caterpillar represented the bullish signs eagerly awaited by investors. The end hours, however, saw the financial media company disavowing its earlier advice. This flip-flop only strengthened concerns of something amiss not only in the stock market but also with the economy.

Enthusiasm returned for a few minutes after the PR releases showed excellent earnings numbers. The happiness was deleted after the company managements spoke dampener messages. The two phases were captured beautifully by separate Bloomberg reports.

Earnings reports generated this quarter have begun a selling phase, independent of results. The reason for this negativity is the multiple disappointments, uncertainties, misses, and hiccups from a variety of business outlooks, political confusion, and consumer activity. The DJIA or Dow Jones Industrial Average is made of 30 companies. These companies are now halfway through their respective earnings reports. Problems began when a JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) report explained what was wrong with the first company itself. The results of seven companies released during the third week of April showed that the JP Morgan results cannot be termed as an anomaly. The venerable magazine Wall Street Journal also discussed this worrisome development.

The fourth week of April began with increasing concerns due to disappointing outlooks from United Technologies and Caterpillar. For the optimistic, this type of successful industrial companies had been a penultimate hope for those who believed earnings during the first quarter of 2018 would rekindle the bull market in 2017.

Analysts contend Bloomberg made the oft-repeated mistake of jumping the gun. It pushed the billing button too quickly. The financial media company's principal fault was assuming that the earnings' call of the management would endorse price jumps and good earnings. The future was, in reality, not that good. The result was that the stocks got sold off in large amounts. Credit, however, must be given to Bloomberg for the re-evaluation of its earlier stance. It completely changed its conclusions so that it matched with the facts. The problem is that the new view is not conducive to the optimistic and rosy view which many investors hoped for. It is thus clear that the cash reserves continue to be an excellent investment strategy.