Jeremy Grantham

"By now, it’s an all-too-familiar drill. After an extended period of extraordinary monetary accommodation, the US Federal Reserve has begun the long march back to normalization. A majority of financial market participants applaud this strategy. In fact, it is a dangerous mistake."

“To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for everything.” ~Edward Abbey

“While Fed did a great job in reacting to global financial crisis, it played an equal role in setting markets up for the crisis by running uber-accommodative monetary policy.”

Jim Cramer - of all people - warned about this in 2007: watch the video inside!

While the world patiently waits for Janet Yellen to raise interest rates this month, the markets have been unable to decide as of yet whether such an event is good or bad thing.

Americans have a broad and heavy bias away from unpleasant data. We are ready to be manipulated by vested interests in finance, economics, and climate change, whose interests might be better served by our believing optimistic stuff "that just ain’t so." We are dealing today with important issues, one so important that it may affect the long-term viability of our global society and perhaps our species. It may well be necessary to our survival that we become more realistic, more willing to process the unpleasant, and, above all, less easily manipulated through our need for good news.

"If you just exclude all the bad stuff, earnings look quite good."

No professional or successful investor every bought and held for the long-term without regard, or respect, for the risks that are undertaken. If the professionals are looking at "risk" and planning on how to protect their capital from losses when things go wrong - then why aren't you?  Exactly how many warnings do you need?

The disconnect between economic underpinnings, market internals and "bullish" investor optimism leaves many investors/advisors "mentally conflicted." If they "sell" too soon, they might miss a further advance in the market. But if they wait too long, well, they have lived through that scenario previously. This week's reading list is a smattering of conflicting views about the markets and the economy.

In GMO’s latest quarterly missive, Jeremy Grantham is back with another dose of inconvenient truthiness, this time in the form of "ten quick topics to ruin your summer"...

This weekend's reading list is a smattering of articles to enjoy between your favorite beverage, grilled meat and really fattening desert. Just remember to go back to the gym on Monday...

Yes, the clock’s ticking louder, louder, warns the Economist, “only a matter of time before the next recession strikes.” Unfortunately, the “rich world is not ready.” America’s not prepared. You are not ready.

Today will go down in history as one of the worst times in history to be invested in the stock market. Virtually no one believes this statement. That is why it will prove to be true. Every valuation method known to mankind is flashing red. A crash is baked in the cake. Will the trigger be Greek default, a Chinese market crash, a Fed rate increase, a derivative bet going boom, a Middle East event, someone doing something stupid in the South China Sea, a Ukrainian eruption, or a butterfly flapping its wings? When greed turns to fear, for whatever reason, the house of cards will collapse for the 3rd time in 15 years. Thank the “brilliant” bankers at the Federal Reserve.

Although a slew of ‘experts’ say the darndest things (e.g.Bloomberg ‘Intelligence’s Carl Riccadonna: “You had equity markets benefit from QE, but eventually QE also jump-started the broader recovery.. Ultimately everyone’s benefiting.”), we can’t get rid of this one other nagging question: who needs an expert to tell them that today’s markets are riddled with bubbles, given that they are the size of obese gigantosauruses about to pump out quadruplets?