
Rick Santelli
That proverbial ‘cold day in July’ happened Friday, February 20. King Rant, Rick Santelli, not only did not rant, but his segment on why people should not fear the Fed’s upcoming moves to raise and normalize interest rates (“Santelli Exchange: Alarm over interest rates”) was actually a rational examination of the question. Amazing! A miracle!

Santelli’s guest commentator, Omid Malekan, a fellow who must have conservative bone fides to have made it into the segment or the Wall Street Journal opinion piece that it was based on, is a very interesting individual … real estate property manager, cartoonist, satirist, commentator on economic matters. Malekan puts the potential Fed rate increases into context. Bottom line … why the fuss? It will be a good thing! BTW, the Journal’s content is accessible by clicking on Malekan’s link above.
NASDAQ Composite Index 5000 … Is it bubble time again?

For some reason this question continues to be posed as we approach that magic number that we penetrated briefly fifteen years ago. “Nasdaq 5000: Will it be different this time?” In and of itself, this is a loaded question. Why? Because everyone in the investment business knows to head for the hills when they hear the phrase, ‘It’s different this time’, commonly heard at the top of every bull market since time began, including the top in 2000. It was the excuse given for accepting the the stratospheric multiples of the ‘tech bubble’. Well, I hate to say it, but it is probably different this time … earnings finally grew into those prices. A more detailed discussion may be found in the link above.
Will miracles never cease!
What is your take?
P.S. It is Monday, February 23 and the folks at CNBC are back to bubble obsession. Venky Ganesan (“Defining a tech Bubble”), venture capitalist at Menlo Ventures, was quarried on the subject. His response is quite telling: “It is not a bubble if everybody is talking about it. If you don’t have people at CNBC talking about whether it is a bubble, then you should be worried … that tells you now maybe people think it is different this time.”
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