Posted on 03/03/2009 3:38:19 PM PST by Fred
For the first time ever, I spent nearly a full hour with my favorite host, Sir Larry Kudlow, on CNBC's "The Kudlow Report" last night.
From my perch, the feature of the show was my call that the U.S. stock market could make a 2009 low this week, a very tough call but a position that I have been edging toward over the past several days.
The lion's share of the last segment of "The Kudlow Report" was devoted to my analysis of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A Quote - Cramer on BRK.A - Stock Picks), and my market bottom call is made near the end of the segment.
My contention, as discussed on last night's show, is that the serious problems have been more than fully discounted in the world's equity markets. Moreover, while many have grown increasingly impatient with the new Administration's piecemeal strategy toward addressing the banking industry's toxic assets, a cohesive deal, under the leadership of Lawrence Summers, will soon be forthcoming and will be effective.
The investment pyramid consists of the three angles of fundamentals, sentiment and valuation. I made this market bottom call based on my expectation of an early 2010 stabilization in the economy (making the 27-month recession the second-longest in history) coupled with an extreme sentiment and valuation swing. (As Dennis Gartman is fond of saying, sentiment and valuation have moved from the top left of the chart to the bottom right of the chart in an historic fashion.)
I am fully cognizant of the magnitude of our economic and credit challenges and that the future is not what it used to be. Indeed, my expectation of The Great Decession, which is somewhere between a garden variety recession and The Great Depression, remains intact and is my baseline expectation.
The difficult fundamental backdrop and rapidly descending stock prices have resulted in a particularly volatile period.
I am also fully aware that most forecasts (of a stock and economic kind), especially at inflection points, are inaccurate or difficult to time, and I know that I am catching a falling knife, which is often an expensive and painful proposition.
Two to three years ago, I had a variant view, and I made a bearish call on equities at a time when (prima facie) all appeared healthy. While I clearly saw the developing cracks in the foundations of credit, in the economy and in the world's stock markets, the media, investment strategists, mutual fund and hedge fund managers wore rose-colored glasses as they were almost universally bullish. Today, most of the same group, many of whom have been destroyed by the bear market, can see no light at the end of the tunnel, and frankly, this bolsters my confidence in the call.
Kudlow is always bullish. As long as Obama is POTUS then I doubt we will see any rallies.
If Phil Berg gets one of his cases to SCOTUS and Kenyan-born Obama is tossed out along with Joe and Pelosi who vouched for O as being eligble - you will see a 2500 point rally in a day.
This is Doug Kass’s prediction, not Kudlow’s.
There will be. It won;t start though until the Dow hits 4000 and Obama is run out of town
The latter will be all that is necessary for a massive rally.
As much as I hate and despise odumbo and boy do I, this market is going to rally and this criminal will get the credit
If you think the ‘mother of all stockmarket rallies’ is coming, can you or the guy who’s predicting this point to ONE SINGLE THING that investors and business owners have on the horizon that looks in the least bit promising for growth?
This is what businesses and investors have to look forward to:
1) Cap and trade, which will impose enormous taxes on anyone who emits CO2, stunting our economic growth and sending jobs to countries who don’t have such stupid laws.
2) Card check, which will effectively unionize the entire country, increasing the costs to manufacture in the US even more than it already is, thus either shutting down companies or sending more work overseas.
3) Rising taxes on just about everything you can think of, capital gains included. This keeps more money out of the market.
4) Eliminations of deductions, including the deduction of home mortgage costs for people making over $200k per year. This will further stunt the growth of the housing market, in turn affecting the home construction industry which is already badly hurt as things stand now.
5) Nationalization of the banks. Because we all know the government can run these companies better than the private sector!
When you or the other guy can name for me something that trumps all of those things that is on the horizon, I’ll be glad to entertain the idea of the ‘mother of all stockmarket rallies’.
It was my mistake. Another member said it was Doug Kass prediction.
Why would capital come to America when Dear Leader is practicing Das Kapital with a little Mein Kampf mixed in. Money ius still fleeing America. Who wants to invest in a country where deadbeats can tell banks they cannot pay their mortgage but give me a free house anyway.
A real PT Barnum prediction. Since the probability of either event is microscopic.
Kudlow was calling for a “soft landing” last fall.
>>As much as I hate and despise odumbo and boy do I, this market is going to rally and this criminal will get the credit
I honestly do not think so. It may “rally” back to 6K after hitting 4K, but that will not replace the lost money from investors who started at the 13K level.
Just like with Clinton...the MSM will shepherd Hussein thru his Presidency....they will be his Praetorian guard...they will let nothing hurt him.
Count on it, we must find a plan to go around them, to get to Hussein, we must first kill or distract his guards.
Capital is fleeing into US treasuries because the rest of the world is sucking wind even worse than we are. But note: capital is NOT coming into the private sector markets. It is in fact being drained from the private sector into the Treasury along with foreign capital.
That is ominous in its implications. We may not have a market rally soon because we may not have a market-- not a real one anyway.
The probability of a stock market rally under Dear Leader is even more remote.
Kass admits that he was one or two years early with his bearish call, and he expects anyone to have confidence in any predictions he might make now........ well, why not? Plenty of people voted for Hussein, after all.
3,000 here we come!!
Right now, psychologically America is in 1930. After the stock market crash of 1929, 1930 was a very tame year. Three times the market looked like it was headed into recovery. Most people just couldn’t see the underlying problems in the economy.
The country still had the feeling of roaring twenties prosperity. There was plenty of food and goods in the stores in the cities. There even seemed to be a lot of money. But the money wasn’t real, it was imaginary, created by margin sales of stock.
Much like the situation we find ourselves in today. Washington, D.C. bandies around trillions of dollars like it is real money, but it isn’t. Last year, tax revenues to the government were about $3T. In truth, any money they deficit spent wasn’t their money to spend. It was imaginary money.
And the vast majority of the economy is imaginary money as well, right now. Just because they say they can spend 10 trillion dollars doesn’t mean it exists. It’s worth the same as a “million billion gazillion” dollars.
And it took over a year, from the time of the 1929 stock market crash, before it was time to “pay up”. And suddenly, nobody had any money.
What we face today is deflation at the same time as inflation. We are so used to “play money” that we think it is the same as real money.
We are playing musical chairs with money, and when the music stops playing, those who still have money will be solvent, and those who don’t, will be poor. And it won’t matter if they think they have money. Suddenly, they just won’t.
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