“Markets flooded with cash, should Fed prep to stamp out risk(Reuters via CNBC 2/21/2014)?” First of all, this is a stupid question as their mandate deals with unemployment and inflation. They are only the ‘risk police’ when it comes to risk of inflation. They can warn about “irrational exuberance”, but it is not their job…
Session 89–Waiting For The Other Shoe to Drop
By my reckoning this ‘shoe’, or the fear of the next bear market, continues to be an overarching theme with investors. And I found an article in this weekend’s Barron’s that really bears this out, “Dow-pocalypes Now” (2/15/2014). “Dow-pocalypes” is another work by famed stock market diviner, Randall Forsyth. Mr. Forsyth, at least in the…
Session 88–“The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
You know the story about the shepherd boy who thought it was a kick to, on a whim, cry “wolf” alerting his village to a wolf attack on the flock that wasn’t really happening. When a wolf finally did attack, no one paid any attention to his pleas for help. I think we have recently…
Session 87–One Foot Out the Door, One Finger on the Panic Button
I think this describes the mindset of many market participants, suspicious of how far we’ve come since the crash of 2008. The ghost of that era still haunts investors; so much so, many cut their equity holdings dramatically or totally avoided stocks (sideline money=buying power). The recent mini-correction has reinforced this skepticism and the media…
Session 86–What planet does Randall Forsyth come from?
Randall Forsyth’s latest negative contribution to Barron’s (February 1, 2014) makes me wonder exactly what pool of market opinion he has been sampling. “January Goes Off the Script” poses the question: “Does a rocky start for the year spell doom for stocks in 2014?” I particularly like Forsyth’s loaded verbiage (i.e. DOOM) . The article…
Session 85–“When will they stop talking about ‘the taper’?”
China is growing. The ‘Dreaded Taper’ is growing. Several emerging market currencies are sinking and the media finally has things to obsess on after a very dull fourth quarter, where most of the popular indices (save the NASDAQ) have made new all-time highs. One of the key points that has developed out of this…
Session 84–“The Sell-Off Heard Round The World”
I assume that this bit of hyperbole brought to us last Thursday (1/23/14) by CNBC’s “Fast Money” anchor, Melissa Lee, referred to the .48% drop in the Shanghai Market and the 1.51% fall in Hong Kong of that date. This bled over into Europe and subsequently into our markets. There was piling on Friday with…
Session 83–Whatever Happened to “The Great Rotation?”
You know “The Great Rotation” out of bonds, which investors feasted on during and after the ’08/’09 crash, into stocks? According to BlackRock CEO, Larry Fink, “It has been a rotation out of bonds into bonds (long-term bonds into short-term bonds). In fact, Fink (on CNBC- 1/17/2014) indicated BlackRock had many institutional clients rebalancing in…
Session 82–“A Correction Is Coming!” Part II
Lest I appear to be a complete “Pollyanna,” I thought it would be useful to point out that, yes, there are many negatives facing the market: some real, some imagined and some not yet foreseen. I subscribe to the old saw, “no tree grows to the sky.” I am acutely aware that the current, unabated…
Session 81–“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
French critic, journalist and novelist, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr had it right with his catchy epigram, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose“, especially as it pertains to todays financial media. With the advent of 2014 those stalwart purveyors of FEAR and GREED are back at it right where they left off. Headlines From The…