• Jim Rogers on Chinese Currency and Trade War: My Thoughts
    asiablues
    03/20/2010 - 19:47
    My take on views expressed by Jim Rogers at a BBN interview on Mar. 18 about the recent currency and trade confrontation between the US and China, the Canadian loonie and the U.S. bond market.
  • Armstrong Economics: Entering Phase II of The Debt Crisis
    Chopshop
    03/20/2010 - 04:48
    Phinance's phavorite political prisoner, Martin Armstrong, cautions that "the EU is in dire position", on the precipice of shattering. Since "debts will never be paid and interest expenditures are the greatest transfer of wealth in history ... Western society is falling apart ... If we do not act, civil unrest will explode. The current choice is DEFAULT or HIGHER TAXES & CIVIL UNREST ... Someone has to step forward to save us or we may be doomed. It's time to wake up for this is the future of our children and their children at stake. "
  • China's Fragile Economy, Its Housing Bubble, and What It Means To Us: Download
    Econophile
    03/20/2010 - 00:41
    As promised, here is the complete article, "China's Fragile Economy, Its Housing Bubble, and What It Means To Us," in a downloadable PDF. You can download it, print it out, and read the entire piece at your leisure. The conclusions aren't encouraging, for them or us.

A Look at the Scoreboard...

1 reply [Last post]
Thu, 01/21/2010 - 22:50
BigBagHolder
BigBagHolder's picture
Joined: 01/14/2010

Markets are notoriously difficult to call or outperform.  There are many reasons for this... but one is that short-term moves are mainly noise.  Add that the best professionals ($100M+/yr guys) are about 75% and we have a recipe for uncertainty.  This allows things to constantly be said that are simply untrue.  Yet few even try to separate rigorous, high-quality information and research from guesses and complete bull-shit biases.

Go one step further, the market moves in waves.  "Optimists" look like heros in bull markets.  "Pessimists" look like heros in bear markets.  Yet, this isnt because they are smart or because they "called the crisis".  Roubini had been calling the subprime crisis since 1992.  Jim Rogers was long commodities throughout the 1990s. TBoone pickens was down 80%, up 5000%, and back down 90%... in 30 years....  total return = ~0%.  Remember how everyone said... "ARM resets will be killer".  Turns out ARMs reset to 3%. 

Last spring, a good example was that S&P500 PE was 50+ or even 100.  This was non-sense and not an honest attempt to run valuation on stocks.  Recently I heard from multiple sources -- "markets always re-trace 50%".  Yet when I check the S&P500... through the last 2 market recoveries (1993, 2003) we never had 10% retracement... for years!

I remember about 2 months ago... everyone on this board was talking about how the USD was going to the toliet and Gold was going to 2,000 or even 5,000/oz.  Interest rates were going to 9%.  Lets see how they have done since early Dec:

Gold = -10%
USD = +5%
10-yr bond = -3% (rates up 40 bps to 3.6%)
SPX = +2.15%

These are mainly muted moves and all point in the direction of a continuing recovery trend that has been on-going for close to 1-yr.  Economic data also continue to support a slowly building recovery.  Leading indicators are up and look better than '82,'92,'03. Earnings releases so far this Q are consistently beating expectations (again, for the 4th straight Q of "beats").  Low rates continue to power low borrowing costs, low rental costs, and help all "financing trades" pay for any credit losses.  HY and corporate credit spread continue to move down.  Jobs are always last... and we need jobs.

Point is, we all should check in with the scoreboard every 1-3 months.

Now stocks are down <1% YTD and 3-4% off highs... and everyone is convinced the "top is in".  Does that sound like rigorous research or high-quality information to you?

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Sat, 02/06/2010 - 19:49
#1
max2205
max2205's picture
Joined: 06/29/2009

Great recap Bag

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