ShareChristopher Wood, the well-noted market strategist at CLSA and writer of the classic Japan crash warning book “The Bubble Economy,” is now warning of a market correction in the West.  According to CNBC India, Wood believes that the markets’ extreme upward move is increasing the chances of a major correction.
Wood is still cautious. He says [...]

ShareJeremy Grantham is out with his much anticipated Quarterly Letter and it’s a good one. “Just Deserts and Markets Being Silly Again” is a cutting, snarling, and sarcastic rejection of the prevailing V-shaped recovery bull market view.  But Grantham is far from ultra-bearish, giving a more nuanced and realistic assessment for the medium and longer-term.
He [...]

ShareThis photo from Yves Smith’s antidote du jour was too good to pass up. You can think of the cat as the recovery stalking its prey and the bear as, well, a bear. The cat looks pretty tame though. Let’s hope this bear doesn’t come right back down and maul it.

ShareIn my last post, I presented you with a bunch of data on debt levels broken down by sector of the economy (see “A brief look at the Asset-Based Economy at economic turns”).  I found it interesting that a secular pattern seemed to be at play when looking at the household debt charts.
Notice the three [...]

ShareBelow is a wide-ranging interview with Marc Faber over four videos on CNBC TV18 in India explaining view on inflation, currencies, commodities, stocks and more.
Asset-based economy. In general, he thinks we are in an inflationary environment, whereas I think that deleveraging is secular and means any inflation is only cyclical. But he shares my belief [...]

ShareThis comes via TheStreet.com and Doug Kass, a noted market strategist:
Many strategists (both bullish and bearish) assume that a fair value P/E multiple — based on interest rates and inflation — rests at about 15.5 times. Averaging the 2009 and 2010 S&P consensus forecasts produces a melded $67.50 S&P EPS, a year-end target of 1045 [...]

Share So we started September in an ugly way. With the markets down 2% across the board, and oil and bond yields also falling.  Forgive me for thinking this is a bad sign, but selling on good news doesn’t sound very bullish.
  And the ISM data definitely was bullish. Production 61.9 – Yay! New orders [...]

ShareYou have probably noticed a change in tone at Credit Writedowns since about June, but a lot more in the past month or so. Once mildly bullish due to the deeply oversold levels this Spring, I have become increasingly alarmed at the unjustified strength of the recent market rally.
My most recent post explaining my concern, [...]

ShareJeremy Grantham is out again with a very important investment strategy piece entitled “Boring Fair Price!”  He leads off by talking about how markets went from extremely overvalued a year ago to cheap back to a state which he considers fair value.  But, he sees the recent rally as a speculative rally which is a [...]

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Here’s a nice clip from Stephen Roach from last week asking “where’s the demand?” 
His thesis is pretty simple:  we have an inventory-induced upturn that might actually show positive GDP growth in the U.S. for Q3, what I have termed the mother of all inventory corrections.  But, that’s it.  Underneath this is no discernible pickup [...]