Beware The Angry Bear

It seems every where I turn, all I hear is the soft landing story. One of the most well respected Wall Street money managers had a commentary a few months ago which starting something like this: "Never in all of my years of investing has the case for a new bull market been so strong.". My response to that is never have I heard someone so delusional. Get back on your medication.

I saw a comment today on another blog where a thoughtful poster was concerned about the economy and was questioning his expectation of a hard landing. Maybe we won't have a hard landing. Well, ok, we will. Sorry to ruin Festivus.

Beware. The bear is lurking. You may not see him but he is out there. I appreciate market commentary but the reality is I don't write about much of anything I can't validate with facts. I have opinions but I use data to support it. The data might ultimately be wrong or I may be misinterpreting the data but I quickly became bored with opinion as soon as I was old enough to have my own.

Below is a graphic from January of 2002 till today. It's pretty easy to recognize the beginning of the economic expansion in March of 2003. It's also hard not to notice it's falling off of a cliff today. (You may click on the graphic for a larger view. It is wider than your screen if you do so. So, you'll have to scroll side to side for a full view.)

Last post this week. I'm taking a few days off. Next week we look at Fed policy and the dollar. Happy holidays!

Sincerely,

The Bear