I am frequently accused of having a negative or bearish bias.
Its a rhetorical ad hominem device used by those who will not (or cannot) address the substantive issues. They prefer the personal attack, the name calling rather then discuss the merits. Its an effective technique if you aren’t on guard for it.
I am biased — by the facts. To quote The Daily Show‘s Rob Corddry: "How does one report the facts in an unbiased way when the
facts themselves are biased?"
I have used this space to highlight positive developments on
many occassions: We’ve been very upfront in suggesting that Oil prices —
even at $75 per barrel — are not that expensive (it merely seems that
way after 25 years of below inflation prices increases), and that gasoline is a relative bargain. For the newbies to the site, we tipped energy in December 2003; Gold and Japan in 2004.
Pre-blog, back in October 2002, I flipped Bullish. And, I heard the same accusations of being a Perma-Bull. We recommended a lot of tech and telecom — Apple at $15 pre-split, MicroMuse (since bought by IBM ~$10) at $1.50 — and
many specific names in banking, and they were, for the most part, home runs.
~~~
Yes, I am biased; no I make no pretensions to be objective — other than common sense, pragmatism, and what my life experience has taught me.
I believe what my interpretation of the facts show, what my models lead me to believe. I have an opinion, a perspective, a point of view.
Just as there is a difference between "Objective" and Ideological;" so too there is a difference between objective and neutral.
Nice post. As per your note, are you shorting the market or staying cash now?
Bravo!!
You tell them B-
Michael Schumacher
One thing I think everyone who reads this blog should take away is that we are ALL at the mercy of our info. Whether or not we are biased is just one more layer of the onion of truth. So many wrinkles get added to the truth by the time most people hear it.The avg weight of the grain of salt required with almost every info channel grows faster than M3.
Of course one needs to have an opinion…if you didn’t, there wouldn’t be much point blogging (or investing.) By the same token, I believe that it’s important to view incoming data points through as objective a lens as possible, rather than through the prism of one’s existing opinion.
There is a tremendous amount of noise in most of the datapoints (economic, price, company news) available to financial market participants, so of course it’s wise to filter that out, insofar as possible. However, assuming every contrary datapoint is simply noise can potentially lead to missed signals…which is why it’s important to examine data objectively. (I am speaking in generalities here, not leveling accusations at Barry or anyone else.)
To quote JM Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
Here are some facts from today’s income report. Typically the amount of disposable personable income devoted to interest payments (not including mortgages as that is an ‘investment’) are between 2.0% and 2.5%. Any amount of significant time at or above 2.5% means a tightening consumer.
2005: 2.317%
2006: 2.418%
1/07: 2.534%
2/07: 2.544%
But income went up .6 and spending went up .6 so it doesn’t matter if there is other information in the report.
Kudos Barry.
Are the markets supposed to be pc?
Are we supposed to please everyone all the time?
Dealing with the markets is more like surfing than trying to create waves by bellyflopping into the pool.
Ever notice how we never see gracefull and bellyflop in the same sentence?
Barry,
Cheers I’ve been looking for a site like this for a while. Was sick of hearing how great everything is meanwhile the numbers were saying different. Keep it up
Costa
It is indeed the most difficult thing to do emotionally – to remain an objective observer of the markets once an investment position is established. Once you’re long, you WANT the good news; shorting brings reveling in the negative. Keeping these emotions in check is one of the qualities that separate good investors from the rest. IMHO.
Small Investor Chronicles
Barry – absolutely a great site. I really appreciate the great perspective and intellect that you, and the other writers like you, bring to blogging. I don’t know why twits visit the good sites like yours, it really serves no purpose for them.
Barry: keep up the good work!!
I saw Ned Davis give a speach and I believe he said it best. This is how he navigates the markets: 1) be data centric in your approach; 2) be disciplined -i.e., follow your systems; 3) be flexible.
Huh? Aren’t #2 and #3 diametrically opposed? And the answer is of course they are but he wasn’t trying to do the double talk.
Basically, use the data, be disciplined to follow the data, and if you want to over ride your system (i.e. be flexible) know when and where you will be wrong.
In other words, don’t stray too far from your strategy!
Barry,
Great post. We all have some bias built in. I would be a dull world if we didn’t. Thesis-antithis-synthasis. (forgive the spelling).
The first rule of disinformation is to scapegoat your adversaries with the very behavior you yourself have been engaging in (surreptitiously or not) and are NOW trying to disassociate yourself from.
The money-for-nuthin’, chicks-for-free cheerleaders will continue to get more desparate and in short-order be accuse you of much worse things than being “biased” ;-)
Personally I can’t wait for the party to be over and the emperor to be left alone on the dance floor butt naked!
By the way, a while back, when thinking about the few twits that visit even the great sites, I thought of an option.
We could create a domain called dot stu (.stu) where the twits could safely congregate and blow smoke up eachother’s butts or whatever twits do in groups when no one is looking.
In any case, by definition the twits don’t fall for reason. The good news is that the vast majority of your readers are good, intelligent people and are never swayed by the twits. We just grin and bear it as we know you have to.
When facts can be revised they are not facts- merely impressions. “Facts” do not stand alone nut require a schema to contain them. The schema is a system of relationships that are debatable for the non doctrinaire. When all is said and done you have very little as the future can’t be factored in with certitude- or there’d be no market…….That’s why Barry’s skepticism is so necessary.
“For the newbies to the site, we tipped energy in December 2003; Gold and Japan in 2004.
Pre-blog, back in October 2002, I flipped Bullish. And, I heard the same accusations of being a Perma-Bull. We recommended a lot of tech and telecom — Apple at $15 pre-split, MicroMuse (since bought by IBM ~$10) at $1.50 — and many specific names in banking, and they were, for the most part, home runs.”
now tell them about your Dow 7000 for 2006 prediction and the whole lot that were strike outs.
If you only tell them about the positive results you aren’t informing. You are advertising.
~~~
BR:
Since you brought it up — it was 6800, not 7000 —
But as I wrote in both Business Week and the Cult of the Bear series, we would have to make new highs BEFORE THE CRASH. The levels I mentioned were the Dow topping out around 11,800, Nasdaq at 2620, and SPX 1350. — Those levels were pretty damn good, and very few people were making a Bulllish call before the fall.
Here’s the Cult of the Bear excerpt:
Before the Fall: With everyone so focused on the bearish year-end forecast, many have overlooked my expectations for early 2006. As the Business Week survey shows, my first half Nasdaq prediction of 2620 was the single most bullish in the group, while my mid-year S&P call of 1350 was in the top 10 of nearly 80 forecasters. I also forecast Dow 11,800 by mid-year. (For the record, the survey was conducted in early December.)
Why the bull call before the fall? Because that’s how market tops get made: In the 12 months leading up to the October 1987 highs, the Dow ran from 1800 to 2700 (a 50% gain), while the S&P 500 sprinted from under 240 to about 340 (about 42%). From October 1999 to March 2000, the Nasdaq nearly doubled. Although I don’t expect anywhere near those gains in the first half of 2006, the pattern could be quite similar: A leap to new highs on some widely held assumption, which subsequently turns out to be false.
~~~
I never understand why guys like you always seem to ignore that; Its just plain weird, but hey, its your choice to believe what you want. If you want to ignore half of any article, I guess thats your choice.
“now tell them about your Dow 7000…”
He’s pointing out instances in which he was bullish…. bearish calls (right or wrong) aren’t relevant to the topic of this post.
“now tell them about your Dow 7000 for 2006 prediction and the whole lot that were strike outs.”
Economic reality seems to be easily bent by the Central Bankers and the Plunge Protection Team, which have been artificially defying economic laws of gravity since at least 2006 – Do you honestly think the Dow is worth more than 7000, based on PEs and future economic conditions?
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” – PT Barnum
Please, Barry, stop confusing us with facts. The plain truth is that markets always go up, the Fed is in control, and there is no such thing as risk.
It isn’t so much that you don’t change your mind, but while you are bearish you seem to see (post) only one side of the story. You scrutinize positive economic data until it looks bad and accept whatever bad data prints at face value. Given this behavior, people aren’t wrong to call your posts biased.
This doesn’t mean your actual thought process is biased (I assume you don’t post everything you think) or that averaging your posts with mainstream media doesn’t produce a much more accurate picture of the world than MSM alone, but from the way you espouse your viewpoint it would not be unreasonable to suspect that you suffer from confirmation bias.
~~~
BR: Don’t we all? Also, I am guilty of anchoring, selective perception, selective retention, and a whole host of other cognitive issues.
But what I post on is typically pushback from the nonsense I read — like the original Q4 GDP at 3.5% (hmmm, what happened to that one?)
Forestfortrees, I thought your claim that Barry called for the Dow to end 2006 at 7000 was a misprint.
A little searching unearthed this undiscussed gem:
http://tinyurl.com/2ue4ku
Yikes! That’s not a prediction for 7000, it looks more like 6800. If my money manager had made a prediction like that which didn’t pan out, he’d be history. Good thing I don’t listen to “experts” and their opinions, and run my own money myself.
That was one amazingly bad bear call – it was off by only 5,600 points. I don’t think there’s any other way to explain it away except that the assumptions which went into making the decision were completely, totally, 100% wrong.
Does anyone have a perma scorecard?
perma-bear: Roubini
perma-bull: Cramer
perma-deflation: Shilling
perma-inflation: Luskin
perma-sunshine: Laffer
perma-gloom: Reich
perma-Golidilocks: Kudlow
perma-gold: too many to list
I’ll repeat my point again in this thread…
There is an unusually hostility of late in the comments section that should end. This has always been a fun place to post ideas (and tease the regulars when need be) and it should stay that way. The regular posters here can do a lot toward moderating their peers and not escalating matters.
Please engage in a civilized debate of ideas.
As the Talking Heads once said, facts just twist the truth around. You know, I think Wall St succumbs to its own memes in terms of everything being broken down to being bullish or bearish. Sure, I disagree with Barry’s severe bearishness. But I also respect the fact that we are very late in the business cycle, that obviously housing is now experiencing the train wreck that could have been expected and that unforseen ripple effects can come from that. But at the same time, corporate profits have been strong (yes past performance is no indication of the future) and wages relatively restrained, and as a result corporate leverage is nothing like it was in 2000/2001. So is terms of data, the real question is whether the unwinding of consumer leverage will hurt USA Inc. And so far, the damage does seem limited. For that reason I’m relatively optimistic, but does that make me a bull?
Don’t worry Barry. The same people who invented “Restless Leg Syndrome” are coming out with a pill to help relieve “Confirmation Bias” soon.
Nova Law,
If you have a thestreet.com account, you can go back in time and read some of Barry’s other great calls.
And if you are new to the Dow 7000 call, this is very old territory. Welcome to the blog. Next subject please.
If y’all wish to debate why the numbers are instead trustworthy, that is a legitimate debate. Though I don’t know how anyone other than a buy and hold EMH believer could trust the numbers. If you didn’t try to better understand the data how could you invest?
Any opinion about the future will always be just that – an opinion. It will be formed by whatever ‘facts’ appear to be reliably available, but beyond that it must be a matter of interpretation. It cannot be simple extrapolation, or nothing would ever change.
In reality, there are inflection points. They are moments of tiny change or slight nuance that go on to became major events.
I really don’t mean to single any one poster out, but Nova Law, if you are so incredibly hostile towards Barry, why not stop reading his site? Is anyone holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read it? Relax! Also, if you would fire a money manager for one wrong prediction, why haven’t you fired yourself? (i.e. how’s your NCAA bracket looking now? Is it perfect?)
Not trying to pick on you too much, but you are wound up and taking it out on everyone. If this site causes you so much pain and suffering, do what most people do; remove yourself from the item causing you pain. Would you keep your hand in a campfire?
Chad, as Barry speaks of “ad hominem,” your post is quite apropos of what he means. Let’s deal with facts. Barry complains that people view him as a permabear, that we must speak of facts. Well, the fact is that 15 short months ago Barry predicted a Dow 6800. That’s one big, 800 pound fact sitting right there in the middle of the discussion. Is discussing it somehow being “wound up and taking it out on everyone”?
I enjoy the author’s postings on this blog; I find the comments of some posters (such as yours) to be less-than-enlightening. In the future I will be sure to skip over your comments and pay attention to those like tmcgee, MacroMan, Guy Lerner, and Forestfortrees who actually add some insight to the discussion, as opposed to the embarrassing bouts of “You go girl!” sycophancy which are sprinkled here and there.
Since you brought it up — it was 6800, not 7000.
Let’s go to the videotape: As I wrote in both BusinessWeek and the Cult of the Bear series, we would have to make new highs BEFORE THE CRASH. The levels I mentioned were the Dow topping out around 11,800, Nasdaq at 2620, and SPX 1350. — Those levels were pretty damn good, and very few people were making a Bulllish call before the fall.
Here’s the Cult of the Bear excerpt:
“Before the Fall
With everyone so focused on the bearish year-end forecast, many have overlooked my expectations for early 2006. As the Business Week survey shows, my first half Nasdaq prediction of 2620 was the single most bullish in the group, while my mid-year S&P call of 1350 was in the top 10 of nearly 80 forecasters. I also forecast Dow 11,800 by mid-year. (For the record, the survey was conducted in early December.)
Why the bull call before the fall? Because that’s how market tops get made: In the 12 months leading up to the October 1987 highs, the Dow ran from 1800 to 2700 (a 50% gain), while the S&P 500 sprinted from under 240 to about 340 (about 42%). From October 1999 to March 2000, the Nasdaq nearly doubled. Although I don’t expect anywhere near those gains in the first half of 2006, the pattern could be quite similar: A leap to new highs on some widely held assumption, which subsequently turns out to be false.”
~~~
Forestfortrees / AnderL:
I never understand why guys like you always seem to ignore that part of the BW forecast or the Cult series — I guess it doesn’t suit your argument;
Its just plain weird, but hey, its your choice to focus on HALF of an article or market perspective. If you want to ignore the other half of the article, I guess it your right.
You can pick what you want to remember and disregard the rest . . . But I am going to call you out on it when you present half a story.
~~~
As I said long before that 6800 level, I do not even believe in Forecasting — which no one does consistently well — and I prefer thoughtful analyzing (which only a few people do well).
As I wrote in a 2005 column (Apprenticed Investor: The Folly of Forecasting http://www.thestreet.com/_tscana/comment/barryritholtz/10226887.html)
No one can consistently forecast the future. We all do it because the media insists upon it.
Since that in initial 6800 forecast, we flipped bullish and back to bearish none times. But it pointed out high levels of risk — which still exist, and long before the Housing debacle unfolded, I was warning about much of what has already come to pass.
Barry,
If you were just another goldilocks permabull, I doubt you would have the audience that you do. Larry Kudlow wouldn’t need you on his show.
We would all love to be right all the time, however what BR is posting is in dispute to what is presented in the sanitary, “clean” world of CNBC, B’Berg, The Street, etc. Let’s face it…bad news does’nt drive subscriptions or viewership..positive things do. We all got sick of hearing about anna smith this and that. The news machines have replaced the daily meeting of “what should we cover” to “what has the largest click through rates”…the time we were being abused by that news…you guessed it that story ranked #1 at most colletion sites.
If divising your own opinion differs from those presented that are in STARK contrast to the actual reality(people have a hard time between what they are told and what they SEE) you are automatically branded in the “opposite” camp.
I’m positive if the overall disposition of the entire economic picture that contains 100’s of indicators were bullish then you would sure see that reflected as reality….however therein lies the problem.
“The King hears only what the King Wants to hear”…is and old saying. We all can be accused of that at somepoint. It just so happens that the “king” is being ausaulted with a two-by-four and still refuses to “hear” anything that is not positive.
or in other words we have a legion of Pisani’s and Kudlows that tell us it is ok ergo it must….
Good weekend to all
Ciao
MS
Any person that posts with ‘Law’ in their handle is clearly a pompous ass.
me thinks my lady doth protest too much
and what is so bad about being called a bear anyway? If thats the way you roll, stand up for what you believe.
I think the folks harping on the “6800” call haven’t accepted BR’s comments about (A) having flipped — at different times over the past year — and gone short-term bullish for periods of time and (B) how useless and inaccurate he thinks forecasts really are.
BR isn’t staking his reputation on his forecasts.
Nevertheless, I don’t think BR’s critics should silence themselves, maybe just write more politely.
Nova Law,
Good luck to you and my humble apoligies for actually trying to point out your apparent lack of understanding of how your messages are percieved. I have no problem with your (nor anyone’s) dissention. Whether you are aware of it or not (and let’s hope for your sake you are unaware), your posts do convey hostility and perhaps a large amount of insecurity.
Congratulations on deciding to ignore my posts! However, none of my future posts will even need to be read by you. I was trying to do you a favor and, given your response, realize I wasted my breath. With your bravado, illogic and anger, you will make a hell of an attorney! Good luck to you.
Keep up the good work Barry….but I need to add my 2 cents on this thread. When I first started reading your writings on RealMoney, I quickly concluded that you were a permaBULL…folks, can you imagine that?…fast foward a few years, I would now say you are permaNOTHING…best I can tell, you call them as you see them. Just keep doing that and I’ll keep reading…again, keep up the good work.
Regarding Barringo’s market call:
When he made that call, the market sentiment at that time had the opportunity to react in one of two ways: 1)- it could’ve reacted to the earnings in 2005 by producing a dramatic reduction in P/E multiples then, and thus the 6,800 or 7,000 levels on the DOW (at that time) would’ve simply been historically a not-unusual course for P/E contraction, or 2)- it could’ve begun (or continued) to experience growing levels of earnings that would either take the market higher with stationary P/Es, or experience earnings growth at a rate even h-i-g-h-e-r than the rate that P/Es were contracting l-o-w-e-r.
The outcome turned out to be number 2, as earnings have grown faster than P/Es have contracted lower. And that’s a good thing, but will the trend continue?… Well, it had better if those bulls among you expect to continue to be as right as you have been right over the last 2 years, because a further contraction of P/Es without the attending earnings increases to outpace it would be rather painful.
There has already been a dramatic contraction of P/Es during these last two years, and now that P/Es are around 15-16 (depending on what one accepts for current/future earnings), one can easily see that any further reduction of market P/E ratio would have a much more dramatic effect on market price level than each unit of P/E contraction that has come before it.
If we arbitrarily accept forward earnings to be $94 on the S&P 500 (at least a reasonable suggestion, whether seen as too high or too low), then the forward P/E of the S&P 500 is now 1,421/94 or 15.1 approximately.
If we observed a 12 P/E with forward earnings, the market would decline by about 21%, and a decline to a 9 P/E would see the market drop by about 41%, and both of those P/E levels are easily reached with any significant reversal of market sentiment… or should I say, with a significant continuation of the somewhat poorer sentiment of the recent few weeks.
A decline of the DOW to a P/E of 9 – 12 would put it at approximately in the range of 7,300 – 9,775 — and the history books written about rather commonly observed market experiences would not have been offended more than slightly, nor would any of your worst market experiences be offended; not offended, that is, should you be at least old enough to have been shaving any of your body parts by approximately 1985.
That was one amazingly bad bear call – it was off by only 5,600 points. I don’t think there’s any other way to explain it away except that the assumptions which went into making the decision were completely, totally, 100% wrong.
I’m not too good at economics, but I know a little about logic. I think the relevant logical argument here says: if the reasoning is sound but the conclusion is false, then at least one of the hypotheses must be false. But not necessarily ALL of the hypotheses! Similar fallacies: if a person makes a mistake, they are stupid; if a person commits a wrongful act, they are evil. People who employ/believe these fallacies consistently are said to have “borderline personality disorder” (that from psychology).
Along similar lines, we ought to be allowed to modify our predictions as our information increases, which, if one is paying attention, it does every day. Of course, one advantage of insisting that a person hold to an earlier prediction is that, if it goes wrong, you can try to blame them for it. Never mind that Barry has been modifying his prediction from very early on, in plenty of time for regular readers. (Was it March 2006 when Barry saw revealed strength and pushed the date of his bearish predictions from Sept/Oct 2006 into 2007?
And never mind the principle that one ought to take responsibility for one’s own predictions! If you took Barry’s prediction as your own and made investment decisions based on it, that was your decision and your responsibility. With that in mind, I have nothing but gratitude for getting to hear Barry’s opinion, which seems far more informed, intelligent and honest than most opinions you can hear for free. Don’t take it as the word of a guru–because you should never do that with anyone’s opinion, as Barry himself will be happy to tell you (and has frequently done so on this blog).
On the topic of the post: some clever person once said that objectivity, in so far as it is attainable by people, cannot be more than the result of analyzing something from many different points of view independently, one at a time–and it certainly isn’t less than that.
Disraeli is helpful here. His ‘never complain and never explain’ is well-known, but I particularly enjoy Elbert Hubbard’s addendum: ‘Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you.’
Anyway, being disliked can be a powerful stimulus to high performance.
I remember a celebrity who when asked what this years baseball team would do, replied, “they will win the world series”. Later he commented, “well if I said they would have a 50% season, no one would remember my prediction. If they dont win the series, no one will recall my prediction. If they win the world series, I am a GENIUS.”
Stick to your guns and leave the labeling to naysayers and schadenfrueds. The reason why this blog is so sucessful is because of the quality of the content.
Folks, before labeling Barry, buy the damned marketletter.
You are taking the content of this blog, which is not the totality of the information, and drawing improper/wrong conclusions. This blog does not contain all of Barry’s analysis.
While Barry has been warning of weakness since Nov/Dec. alerts/marketletters, he has also issued several low risk buy calls that have done quite nicely. He discussed some of them in his latest Bloomberg appearance.
Are long buys bearish?
As someone with a bit more of Barry’s info I wouldn’t say he is a bear or bull. He seems to be cautiously straddled waiting for confirmation of the short term trend.
That would include some cautious shorts/hedges and some good long calls.
Do we have a perma-realist label? That fits.
Craig, per you:
“Do we have a perma-realist label? That fits.”
—
Why, yes… that would of course be me, Eclectic.
[troll comment re: MII deleted]
One of the small spec bio-med stocks wer rec’d last year turned out to be a jumbo loser (30-50%) — we were stopped out at a dollar, and its now down another 60% from there. It was made crystal clear to subscribers this was a totally speculative name, and that it was a potential zero —
But what matters is the process — not to trolls, but to traders and investors. You can pick any specific stock and focus on an individual outcome, or if you are smart, you can look at the process.
As I wrote in AI series, I initiate every position expecting to be wrong — if and when I am, I honor the stop loss and move on:
http://www.thestreet.com/comment/barryritholtz/10215965.html
Thats the process that prevents me from getting killed in any one name, sector or asset class. It worked well in 2000, and I expect it will work well in 2007-08.
If you put together a highlight reel of all of Michael Jordan’s missed shots, and all of Hank Aaron’s strike outs, what does that prove? (Notthat I am in their class, but I am making a point) Its their mechanics, the process, the probabilities that are the difference between long term success and failure.
MII was a jumbo loser — not the first, and it wont be the last.
Ah, Eclectic, the modest realist! LOL!
You’re so vain, you probably think this blog is about you, you’re so vain….
“Eclectic posts, well worth it.”
– Barron’s, Not Another Blah, Blah Blog
Recently a berkshire hathaway shareholder complained to Warren Buffet about the company holding petrochina, which had gone down. Buffet told them they were under no obligation to own Bk.
As usual I will mention that you have to figure out what time frame your talking about. You also need to decide if you are only buying the whole market or individual issues.
I really think it is wonderfull that somepeople think that the people who make the most money in the stock markets are always the best stock pickers.
If I am wrong 2/3 of the time and loose 1x when I am wrong and make 3x when I am right, I can make money. The next qustion is how much do I bet and the other question is how often does this happen. And of course what is my risk of ruin.
And the biggest question is did BR make money during the time period? How did his sucribers do? What were his calls during the period, how were potfolios managed? If you want infallible predidctions there are people who you can pay 3.99 a minute to.
And most of all “Why do you seem so dammed unhappy?”
I hope we’ve all moved on, but the 6800 call happened and must be owned. Same with the follow up article, which only goes to show that a point-in-time call isn’t a perma-call. I don’t know what prompted this post, but I hope it wasn’t anything more offensive than what Kudlow dishes out every night. I thought the 6800 call was silly, but if you take Larry down a notch, I’ll be cheering for you.
Craig,
You mean it’s not??
LOL!
That’s why I included the blurb from Barrons….Eclectic posts…..tis true.
All great food for thought, no?
Craig,
I’m also about as trenchant as you can get, no?
Hmmmm, keen, forceful, articulate, yes. Penetrating? We’ll see. Time will tell for us all.
I still think the Fed raises rates, but I’m neither eclectic nor trenchant.
Poor bondy.
She never planned on free trade/emerging mkts. and ethanol contributing to inflation.
Time will tell.
Craig,
Thanks for the descriptors.
But, BTW, I’ll THANK YOU to get Bondie’s name right, if you don’t mind.
I’ve put a lot of time and effort into that girl, and she cried all night when you incorrectly spelled her name:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%5ETNX
But she has forgiven you and you are invited to her New Year’s Day Party… Be sure and be there between 4.25 and 5.00 SHARP!
Barringo will be very late to the party (thinking it starts at 5.25 or later) and he won’t get to sing “Auld Lang Syne” with the guests.
Sorry Bondie.
Rumor has it BR and Ben will be having drinks at 5 and will show up fasionably late at 5.25.
Don’t stay up too late now Bondie. You know how inflation can make you cranky and the Fed’s mouthpeices are out talking about what might keep you up.
Barry,
Interesting post. Reminds me of something you might like to hear: only until I started thinking on my own two feet about economics, and the markets especially, did I take anything you said seriously…turn back the clock a few years:
I am back at college – procrastinating as usual – watching CNBC. A few months earlier I had set out on my journey of investment education, and after finding what I believed to be the experts (CNBC, MSN Money, Smart Money, Buffett,etc) I moved into sponge mode. No questions, no opposition. I just read (and watched) everything I could and tried to absorb it. That evening you made a guest appearance – not even sure what the topic was. Needless to say, I found your demeanor arrogant at best, and your opinions unsettling, if not annoying (the sky is falling!).
I’ve come a long way since then. After learning enough to think independently, and form my own opinions, I began to seek commentary and news from different places in place of the old. This blog has become one of those sources. Your commentary is valuable because I can now tell good argument from bad, and provocative theory from fantasy. Not only that, but I realized that I had mistaken your conviction for arrogance. I’m guessing your opinions used to be unsettling because they are brutally factual, and sometimes the truth sucks. Now when I watch CNBC, I often wish they would bring you on to keep some of these cheery zombies in check!
Keep up the good work!
That’s okay Craig, but I suspect you didn’t get the memo.
While Dr. Benber N. Anke is indeed trying to kick the booze with the 12-step program, he just got on a cruise ship by mistake full of Spring Breakers to Cancun, so I wouldn’t sweat the 12-step program any time soon.
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Seriously Craig – You might be right and it’s a long time until the ball falls in Times Square again. Cheers.
Uh Oh….which cruiseship?
Was it the SS Volcker or the unsinkable USS Greenspan? That Greenspan ship is nothing but a giant punchbowl.
Ah but the Volcker is a beauty, isn’t she?
Sure cut through rough seas in her past….
now there’s a ship.
Don’t forget your life vest Bondie. I hear the water is around 5.25 leagues deep out here….
Flares are wet… not likely to get high enough to be seen by Dr. Anke.
Volcker was a much taller man… he could probably have seen the flares.
You don’t need a life vest if the water’s only 4.75 deep.
Craig, would you put on a chicken suit and cluck with Barringo on the “GSNTS” if Bondie’s party is held at or before 5.00 sharp on New Year’s Day?
Hey Barry,
Keep the great work goin !
Any more links to Soros’ interviews or those of Buffet & Friedman articles or i/ws
Pls publish !
Been good education so far ! Pls do publish on Thestreet.com
Regards,
Brij
I’ve been sitting here in my free range chicken suit looking at your chart Bondie….you know, all things being equal about now, and assuming you hold your trend, you look like you are heading for a test of 5.25 if you are half the technician I think you are. Have you seen it?
It’s as obvious as Luskins boneless breast on Kudlow. Cluck!
Craig,
Test 5.25?…. Now, would that be with or without the Dallas Fed’s Fisher first abducted, gagged and transported to the planet Zenon? Do YOU realize what that boy can do with a guest spot on CNBC??
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Craig, you need to get a life…C’mon, let’s take this number and ratchet it up a few “topics” or we’ll both be left for dead.
Besides, you’ve lost track of my first cluckin’ challenge to Barringo.
Barringo said one day on the Big Pic “could blow through 5.25.”
I said “100 bucks says ‘at or under 5.000 on last day 2007,’ means Barringo could cluck on the G.S.N.T.S.”
He put me on the cover of the Rollin’ Stone, and then he said: “maybe, Eclectic, I’ll take you on, but only needs a spike to 5.25, regardless of when.”
I said, “no can do – Fisher lurks! – I’ll accept, but only with either the original terms or you’ll need a spike to 5.50.”
I punched the timer and Barringo hasn’t made his next move.
Dang, I was just enjoying the cruise thinkin’ we could start a new financial cartoon, “Bondie and Chicken”, “Ben and Chicken” or something like that.
Okay, back to the top topic, RE…..oh goody. Like Real estate’s gonna get better soon.
At least it’s Eclectic.
Dang, I was just enjoying the cruise thinkin’ we could start a new financial cartoon, “Bondie and Chicken”, “Ben and Chicken” or something like that.
Okay, back to the top topic, RE…..oh goody. Like Real estate’s gonna get better soon.
At least it’s Eclectic.