In the midst of today’s roller coaster ride, Bank of America raised Monsanto (NYSE:MON) to a “buy” from “neutral” as “agricultural market developments once again point to a plethora of sustainable growth drivers. The bank, which raised its price target on the U.S. agricultural biotech company to $130 from $116, said with more reasonable valuation it sees an attractive entry point ahead of strong expected results for the second quarter. Banc of America sees a confluence of powerful drivers to support over 20 percent earnings growth beyond 2010. An industry-leading pipeline of new products and rising adoption of biotech traits in existing markets are some of the drivers, it said.”

Is it me, or is the ag sector in the “glowing good news” enthusiasm phase of the investor sentiment cycle?

While I was surfing Eric’s site, I saw the link to the following video of Patrick Geddes. He is so right. After dealing with traders for the past 10 years, I can tell you for sure that while trading is not rocket science, it turns out to be much more difficult than most people had originally imagined. There are probably several overlooked factors that makes it difficult for people to trade, and I’ll write a post about that next week.

Media Digest

• If at first you don’t succeed
  (Editor: Interesting sentiment, eh?) Third time lucky? The credit markets almost seized up in August, December and again this month and on each occasion the Federal Reserve has led a rescue attempt. Ben Bernanke’s latest effort led to a bout of euphoria on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 index managing its biggest one-day increase in over five years on Tuesday March 11th. The trouble is, every time the Fed has doused the flames somewhere in the credit markets, they have flared up somewhere else soon afterwards.