IMHO, the exact opposite has happened. The last couple weeks has not seen the elimination of a lot of weak hands, but brought in a lot of weak hands! Look at the evolution of August QQQ Max Pain over the last couple weeks, it has come down from over 26 to half way between 23 and 24! Why would the crooks be interest in engineering a rally at all at this point? Especially on the NAZ. On the $INDU perhaps, but even there the financials are showing the recent ramp fading.
Zeev, I believe you vastly underestimate the public's perception that 9-11 was a once-in-a-lifetime exogenuous event that precipitated unreasonable market losses on a short term basis.
That perception is being shattered right now, and many are in the process of evaluating their attitudes going forward in the market.
Most people under 50 are still holding their 401K stock portfolios and mutual funds. Only the retirees and early retirees have gotten safe. There is no way we can have any kind of bottom until the vast majority of the investing public is terrified of buying stocks. We are far from that level, IMO.
As for the powerful bounce some expect from this low, I would have to say we need to look at a bell curve and realize bubbles follow that pattern. When you get closer to the bottom, the bell tends to flatten out. Look at a chart of JDSU for a good example of what we will see, IMO:
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