“Death of Equities II” from the NY Times

Howard Gold, executive editor of MoneyShow.com, believes that business journalism has just experienced a seminal moment — the repeat of BusinessWeek‘s infamous “Death of Equities” cover from 1979 that was spectacularly wrong about the future of the stock market, which rose dramatically in the next two decades.

Gold writes, “Well, last Sunday, The New York Times published what may as well have been entitled ‘The Death of Equities II.’

“In the right-hand column of the print edition’s front page — the newspaper’s equivalent to a magazine cover — was an article headlined: ‘In Striking Shift, Investors Flee Stock Market.’

“The subject was pretty familiar to users of MoneyShow.com and other investing and financial sites: Americans have pulled billions of dollars from domestic stock funds and poured them into bond funds at a record pace.

“While not as sweeping — or categorical — as the 1979 Business Week piece, the Times article also captured a mood of deepening pessimism among investors.

“Today, the Business Week cover is remembered as a sign that investors had ‘thrown in the towel’ — the capitulation that signals the end of a bear market.”

Read more here.