Investors are still scarred from the 2008 crash and they perceive stocks as risky, a feeling reinforced by a good bit of volatility in the markets in recent years.
"For a perceived defensive stock, BT is really testing investors' nerves," said Keith Bowman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
The rally was tied to technical trading on perceived bargain stocks, he added.
Traders and fantasy owners must understand how the public perceives stocks and football players to enhance value.
Without growth investors supporting these shares and with value investors still perceiving the stocks as being too expensive these blue chips lacked any investor constituency.
Typically, when the Fed starts to ease, people perceive utility stocks in general as being a defensive sector, and once rates have gone down typically the old benchmark has been three Fed cuts you rotate into more growthier potential earnings-type companies.
The American depository receipts of Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile telephone gear, more than doubled, from $22.3125 on Oct. 1 to a high of $59.3125 on May 1. Smaller, riskier stocks perceived to be bets on the wireless Internet rose, too.
According to David Blitzer, who heads S&P's index committee, S&P tries not to remove stocks perceived to have short-term, solvable problems.
One reason is that these funds can use leverage, sell short stocks perceived to be overvalued, buy and sell derivatives and employ other techniques to make money regardless of the direction of the markets.
Equally betrayed are those who held Enron stock in retirement accounts who made life-altering decisions based on the stock's perceived value, only to find themselves locked into a rapidly sinking investment that ate up years of hard work.
