For those following the investment series on this site, you should read this article in Bear Market Investments. It deals with Albert Edwards judgment as to where the stock market is headed. His assessment, at least in its end point regarding the stock market, is virtually identical to mine.
Sometime we wonder if we are the only ones who are stunned by the ridiculousness coming out of the stock market on what seems a daily basis. Luckily, there is at least one other person out there who, like us, take a bemused approach to the endless insanity. As Albert Edwards says in his latest note: “I’ve been doing this job long enough to recognise when the markets are entering a new phase of madness that leaves me scratching my head with bemusement. The notion that we are in a sustainable economic recovery is as ludicrous as it was in 2005-2007. But investors are back on the dance floor, waltzing their way towards the next, inevitable implosion – yet another they will no doubt claim in retrospect was totally unpredictable!”
In that vein, it is not surprising that Edwards shares our disdain toward the Chairman:
“Very little surprises me anymore in this business. But even I was surprised by Ben Bernanke?s comment on CBS?s ?60 minutes? that he has ?100% confidence? that he can act quickly to stop inflation getting out of control. Surely if there is one thing Ben Bernanke should be 100% confident about, it is his own fallibility. Remember this is the man who was not only adamant that US house prices would not decline, but refuted the very notion that there was even a house price bubble in the first place! I realise these guys have to pretend that they know what they are doing, but you would have thought that, having been at the epicentre of the biggest economic and financial crash since the 1930s, he would show a little humility and uncertainty. Apparently not.”
But when the entire system, the whole global ponzi pyramid, knows it has no choice but to continue ploughing ahead, as otherwise the consequences would lead to the end of the financial system as we know it, what can one do but join the banks…
“In July 2007, the then CEO of Citigroup, Chuck Prince, told the Financial Times that global liquidity was enormous and only a significant disruptive event could create difficulty in the leveraged buyout market. “As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance,” he said. “We’re still dancing?. This of course was a variant on the Japanese saying “When the fools are dancing, the greater fools are watching.” Well, I suppose if Bernanke is specifically targeting the equity market with QE, who but the most curmudgeonly bear would not be gyrating their hips in time to the music?
Unlike Ben Bernake, I like to retain some sense of humility. And it’s at times like these that I really start to think I haven’t got a clue what is going on anymore. It really is a mad, mad, mad world. Although on the sell-side I think I remain a lone voice of bearishness, there are other commentators who share my extreme scepticism of the current situation.”
