Perhaps it was his comments today that "a construction boom is coming... tune out the noise and enjoy the bull market" due to lower oil costs and improving weather; but it appears JPMorgan and the permabull are about to part company after 15 years:
- *JPMORGAN U.S. CHIEF EQUITY STRATEGIST THOMAS LEE DEPARTS FIRM
- *JPMORGAN ANNOUNCES LEE'S DEPARTURE IN INTERNAL MEMO
It is unclear if Lee's next career will be as waterboy for Ben Bernanke on his $250,000/speech global speech tour. What is, however, likely is that in his place JPM will simply unleash an algorithm that keeps raising JPM's "official" S&P500 price target to 100 points above wherever the S&P may be at any given moment.
His last permabull appearance on CNBC as a JPM Talking Head...Enjoy!
"Tune out the noise and enjoy the bull market"
The curve becomes inverted in front of recessions, and markets should have plenty of lead time to prepare, Lee said.
Investors shouldn't ignore runaway valuations or bubble-like behavior, but Lee said symptoms of a looming recession remain the "most telling bear sign."
"These are things we can't ignore," Lee said. "You don't want to have a market that becomes speculatively frothy. The most important thing for us [are] the signs of a recession. ... Really we should focus on the fact that we're in a bull market."
Rumors suggest that he is leaving the firm to run corporate relations for Bill Fleckenstein's new short fund... or not.