“Central banks do matter. Central banks have always mattered,” said David Rosenberg, a chief economist at Gluskin Sheff and Associates, who started work as a Wall Street economist on the day of the 1987 stock market crash. “So long as the Fed is in an accommodative mode and the economy is out of recession, the odds are that you will have a bull market.”
That’s not to say that the Fed’s largess is the only reason stocks are up. Company profits, which theoretically provide the basis for investing in stocks, have also surged. “Corporate earnings have been doing very nicely, thank you,” said Alan S. Blinder, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. In aggregate, companies in the S.&P. 500 have not reported a decline in earnings since the third quarter of 2009.
৫ মার্চ, ২০১৩
"The Dow Jones industrial average... rose more than 120 points in morning trading on Tuesday, surpassing its previous record close..."
"... of 14,164.53, which it achieved nearly five and a half years ago, as well as its record intraday high, set around the same time, of 14,198.10."
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Soshulism.
Blinder is a partisan op-ed writer who trades on his Princeton professorship. Not sure he should be consulted as an expert on this.
Of course, it's the NY Times. The reporter probably thought to consult people he knows are enthralled with the Fed's monetary policy and would readily point to near-zero interest rates as the source of our many summers of recovery.
Amazing what you can achieve when you drive interest rates to zero and put the printing presses in overdrive.
What happens when the fed can't keep uping the money supply and keeping rates artifically low?
Good times ahead.
I feel bubbly.
Wow, and this is happening with the Sequester in effect. Why would we want to end this "disaster"?
Pumping air into the stock markets will not necessarily cause the economy to catch fire.
There is a ton of money sitting on the sidelines with nowhere to go. The Stock market is one of the few places you can go to get a decent return, relatively low taxation, and the ability to get completely out of your investment at a moment's notice. The current combination of uncertainty, higher taxes on earned income, and low return on safe money, makes the stock market actually the safest bet. The problem is that such a thing is a house of cards with everyone keeping their finger on the sell button. The sell offs will be huge. The bull strength is also due to us being in crappy times so long that people are getting immune to risk again. People are just tired of waiting and don't see any changes coming, so what the hell. This is probably the most risky situation of all, but hey, go for it. There is always at least one winner, and it could be you!
You could not find a man handing out worse advice right now than Alan Blinder.
Sure, a market based on ephemeral things like low interest rates and questionable monetary policies like QE may soar for a bit. But unemployment remains high and GDP growth remains sluggish. It will crash in the end.
It's all fake.
Corporate earnings? Really?
Soshulism.
What happened to consumption and greed are bad for the environment?
This is the next bubble. It will end like the last one. Or worse.
Big deal -- it's only at a record high in nominal dollars (it doesn't take inflation into account). It would have to go up another 10-15% to match the record high in inflation-adjust dollars. And even at that point, you'd only have broken even if you were invested in the Dow all these years (your only gains would be dividends). You can see why public pension systems that are based on expectations of 7% annual gains are in DEEP trouble.
Zero Hedge today. Two new Coolidge books out this past month. 1929 anyone ?
Wow, and this is happening with the Sequester in effect. Why would we want to end this "disaster"?
Oh yea..
Lets not forget... the sky is falling and the market is going up to meet it... or something.
"Corporate earnings have been doing very nicely, thank you,” said Alan S. Blinder"
A lot of this is because employees are stuck with nowhere to go and no leverage for pay increases.
I can count number of requests for a raise on one had at my company since 2008. Before that it was a daily occurrence. People use to get trained by us and then move on to another job. Now they stay. I still give increase all the time based on performance, but not because anyone asks for them.
So labor is stable and relatively cheap, capital is essentially free for successful companies with good credit. It is a good a time for the well off, no doubt about it.
@MarkW
Yep, that's the right way to look at this. It took 5 years to get back to where we were (and that's ignoring inflation).
I've made some nice money since early 2009 when I starting accumulating as many shares in my preferred companies as I could. Recently been selling off small positions of my high flyers as the market has gone up.
If you have some great gains. Take a bit off the table. One never goes broke when making money.
I feel sorry for the dumb bastards who decide to invest when the market is heavy into a rally.
Blinder writes regular Op Eds for the Wall Street Journal. I read them, but what I look forward to are the letters to the editor a few days later demolishing his thesis. I learn more from those letters than I ever do from Mr. Blinder.
From Shanna's link:
"While I don’t expect a Zombie Apocalypse resulting from either scenario, temporary supply disruptions caused by market uncertainties will be inevitable — and that will lead to empty supermarket shelves, fuel shortages and, possibly, utility failures that will almost certainly result in civil unrest and increased crime in more densely populated areas."
Ha!! To those who make fun of us who do some prudent prepping, stuff it. Being forewarned and forearmed is only smart. It doesn't mean that we are rooting for disaster. It just means that we have also considered Plan B.
Our Plan B. You should have one too.
What happens when the fed can't keep uping the money supply and keeping rates artifically low?
Inflation. Shortages of everything. Bond market crashing. Property values tanking. More foreclosures (you ain't seen nuthin' yet people) Industry slowing down or ceasing in some areas. Higher unemployment. Banks failing. Vagabond populations. Crime rising.
More?? Read up on the Great Depression.....we are about to repeat history.
I've stayed in the market the whole time since the crash. It's time to get off, but there's really no place to put the money. I'm thinking about burying it in the backyard.
Next thing you'll read about is how this is the result of great leadership in Washington. Yeah I feel bubbly too.
I'm thinking of buying land. Not to speculate, but to live on.
Bonds pay little and cash yields nothing. The stock market is in a Fed created bubble. We have seen this show before. It will end badly.
One has to be deliberately stupid to believe that it is a good sign when business are sitting on mountains of cash instead of investing it. The best investment for any business is to invest in itself. Nothing else will yield a higher return for it's owners. Far from being a sign of a recovery this is all one needs to know that the economy is stagnant and that there is no overall sense of a recovery.
The Fed cant keep rates this low forever. But it can do so for quite a long time. Obama will probably get lucky and finish his term before rates go up but eventually they will. And when they do the stock and bond markets will crash. On the bright side those who have the discipline to do so will cash out of both markets at the first sign of easy money coming to the end. They will then sit on cash and wait for the moment to get back in and make out like bandits when the panic sales start. I have been to this rodeo before.
Where I used to work, they got rid of the employee pension plan. They will kick in some for employees 401K's. That's all employees have anymore. They have no choice but to put their money into the stock market. Will it be there when they retire? Good guess, but I doubt if interest rates will be this low forever. If they go up, look out.
nflation. Shortages of everything. Bond market crashing. Property values tanking. More foreclosures (you ain't seen nuthin' yet people) Industry slowing down or ceasing in some areas. Higher unemployment. Banks failing. Vagabond populations. Crime rising.
Time to buy Glenn Beck's Apocalypse Survival Kits!
Inflation. Shortages of everything. Bond market crashing. Property values tanking. More foreclosures (you ain't seen nuthin' yet people) Industry slowing down or ceasing in some areas. Higher unemployment. Banks failing. Vagabond populations. Crime rising.
Heh. I kind of meant my comment to be rhetorical but yeah. Hyperinflation scares me more than anything else out there.
And thanks to everyone for reminding me to sell a bit so I can buy after the next crash.
What BDNYC said.
Original Mike: you could invest in metals.
Gold, Silver.
Or brass, steel, and lead.
(Or non-metals, like chocolate.)
You think the federal budget is unworkable now? Wait until interest rates go back to normal and the interest on the debt rises to half-a-trillion dollars per year.
Real incomes are down. Stratification continues. Progressive policy wanks in action.
@SJ: I don't know. I wish I had, but it seems too late now. At least for the precious metals. I do need to look at commodities.
Nominal and real values are different, the Dow being a measure of nominal value in dollars. As we devalue the dollar by creating more of them via quantitative easing and given the number of public companies have been declining and the number of shares in these companies have been declining, it is only natural for the nominal value of the stock market to increase. I'm surprised it hasn't been going up further and faster.
Ya know that buy low, sell high thing?
Now's the time; of course, people like garage and Leland will take this as a signal to start buying.
Original Mike said...
This is the next bubble. It will end like the last one. Or worse.
Or worserer.
Michael K said...
Zero Hedge today. Two new Coolidge books out this past month. 1929 anyone ?
I hear 1873 was even worse.
Every time Amity Shlaes writes a book, she's proven right.
First by events, then by the dumb Democrats.
It takes money to make money, and for everyone living paycheck to paycheck who had their savings slowly chipped away the past five years we have no way of participating.
This rally is like Jeffrey Dahmer.
How is bagoh20 managing at "my company", evaluating performance in order to give raises and frequently commenting on Althouse at the same time? Go back to work!
Wall Street is desperately trying to suck Main Street investors into its fabulous new highs trap. Then *Wham!* the trap is sprung and down we go. The tell? Insider selling and short positions are up.
Hey, garage. There's an opening for Communications Director at the Democratic Party. You'd be a natural.
Original Mike said...
You think the federal budget is unworkable now? Wait until interest rates go back to normal and the interest on the debt rises to half-a-trillion dollars per year.
What the hell are you talking about, Obama is going to save $100 billion this year vs. last year's deficit!!!!!
He's like a super-duper debt reducer and stuff!
Speaking of the Panic of '73, garage and all the other Lefties might want to take note of the role crony capitalism played in this country.
It's also instructive that it lasted as long as our own little disaster and was known as The Great Depression until the 30s.
Jacksonjay,
I worked for 30 years to get this company. Now I pay people to do it all. Do you want me fire someone, and take their job? All my life I dreamed of being able to comment on Althouse - even before there was such a thing. No it wasn't Al Gore - I thought it all up myself as an elaborate plan to avoid working. I'm glad you jumped aboard. Let's kick it. Get out the blender.
It's going to crash.
And as for "evaluating performance", whoever comes in my office to distract me from here with a "problem" is not performing. I have a t-shirt that would be perfect for Gov. Christie. It says simply: "Fix it."
So bagoh20, you manage by with the "closed door policy"? Do you yell and scream and throw things when "fix-it" doesn't?
Re: Bagoh20: "Now I pay people to do it all. Do you want me fire someone, and take their job? All my life I dreamed of being able to comment on Althouse - even before there was such a thing"
If you ever need to hire out help for commenting on Althouse have your people contact my people.
bagoh20 said...
Jacksonjay,
I worked for 30 years to get this company. Now I pay people to do it all. Do you want me fire someone, and take their job? All my life I dreamed of being able to comment on Althouse - even before there was such a thing.
You were for her before you were against her.
She is seared, seared in your memory.
You have those breasts, you have them to this very day.
Re: "You have those breasts, you have them to this very day."
Naked Ed Gein Robot says:
A kindred soul.
I gotta admit, I like it when she goes all schoolmarm on someone! She gave it to me once!
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...
Amazing what you can achieve when you drive interest rates to zero and put the printing presses in overdrive.
And yet unemployment is still high and growth is in the sub 1% area.
The stock market is doing well. The economy still sucks.
Care to field this one Garage?
Original Mike said...
I've stayed in the market the whole time since the crash. It's time to get off, but there's really no place to put the money.
Hence the market activity.
jacksonjay said...
I gotta admit, I like it when she goes all schoolmarm on someone! She gave it to me once!
Next time she'll keep you after class and get out the ruler.
I hear she even puts on her pince-nez glasses and wears them on the tip of her nose.
garage mahal wrote:
Soshulism.
Nope. Innie quality. Obama better quash those profits right quick.
Hello!
All this makes my $250 dollar gold and $4 dollar silver and bags of silver dimes look pretty good...
Enjoy the apocalypse suckers..
"Hence the market activity."
Yeah.
PS: I take that back, my last big buy of gold was@ $273/oz to be exact..
Mea culpa.....suckers..
virgil xenophon said...
All this makes my $250 dollar gold and $4 dollar silver and bags of silver dimes look pretty good...
Enjoy the apocalypse suckers..
While true as far as it goes, you're gonna need some bran to digest those gold and silver coins you stashed away.
So ... **this** is where all the QE money ends up ... inflating equities and commodity market prices ...
Nanny Bloomie said don't worry about it, the government can't be run like your household, the US has people willing to lend us money.
A friend was talking to a client, the client was from the former USSR.
He sees what's coming more than a mile away, he said Americans have no idea what's coming, people going door-to-door asking for food, etc.
But he's an old white guy, what does he know?
Like the dead old white guys who gave us The Constitution, he and they lived it already.
Even Bob Brinker says we need a correction.
The question is is it gonna be small or hard?
I gotta admit, I like it when she goes all schoolmarm on someone! She gave it to me once!
I went "I'm not one of your law students," before Scott Brown did.
Yeah, and I lost the election too.
Original Mike? I've started reading Marginal Revolution again, I think someone there said $900 billion in interest.
OTOH, we could just Government Motors them?
The most expensive words in the English language, "This time it's different."
Can you say 'liquidity bubble' , children?
They are blowing the biggest bubble ever!
The bubbles in other markets have shown signs of losing cohesion.
To paraphrase Einstein:
Insanity is to blow bubbles which pop, then to blow ever bigger bubbles and hope for a different outcome.
It's interesting to note that at one time the Left's activists and organizers experienced a brief brush with reality, where they recognized that not everyone could enjoy a beachfront property in Hawaii. Since that short interlude in the real world, they have decided that not only are principles of evolution inconvenient, but that other constraints imposed by the natural order are also negotiable.
For everyone a pot of gold and a pot of gold for everyone!
Communism, socialism, fascism, and other derivatives of left-wing philosophies are not exactly what people were lead to believe they are.
@Red - I was trying not to be alarmist.
Sure, flood the market with freshly printed greenbacks and "forget" to include inflation in your calculations, and all the big companies are doing great!
And everyone who isn't a Fortune 500 exec or a government drone? Well, they're not doing so well. But, hey, BULL MARKET!!!!
This is actually one of my biggest problems with Blinder. He says, "don't worry about our deficit, interest rates are so low it's a great idea for the government to be borrowing."
1 person's alarmist is another person's realist.
It still won't harsh some posters' mellow.
garage mahal said...Soshulism.
Close, but more like Corporatism, a slightly more refined strain of leftist.
All this makes my $250 dollar gold and $4 dollar silver and bags of silver dimes look pretty good
Who do you think is going to be *buying* gold, in the event of economic collapse? It isn't actually useful for much of anything. Why would a person trade scarce food, fuel, or ammunition for a few grams of shiny metal?
You probably should have invested that money in something more sensible, like farmland and guns. :)
Via Confounded Interest:
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost an aggregate $246 billion during the shriveling of the great American housing bubble. They lost all the profits they had made since 1971 plus another $140 billion — quite a performance. The government rushed in to rescue Fannie and Freddie’s creditors with $187 billion of taxpayers’ money, to bring their capital up to zero: this means that ordinary Americans are being taxed so that foreign and domestic bondholders get back every penny they lent Fannie and Freddie.”
We just need a more balanced approach, more taxes.
I read Barry wants to raise Unemployment Insurance contributions.
A nick here, a nick there, death by 1000 cuts.
Close, but more like Corporatism, a slightly more refined strain of leftist.
Funny.
I read Barry wants to raise Unemployment Insurance contributions.
Well, when you let people draw it for three years, you are going to run out of money a lot more quickly.
Enjoy the incline bitches!:)
A friend was talking to a client, the client was from the former USSR.
He sees what's coming more than a mile away, he said Americans have no idea what's coming, people going door-to-door asking for food, etc.
@ Red. This probably explains the difference in attitude between us 'older' people who have been through a couple of small recessions in our lifetimes and who had been raised by people who lived through the Great Depression. Our parents and grandparents who experienced first hand WWI the Great Depression and WWII. Those people who lived through those times never forgot how hard things can be, how easily it can be hard times again and never forgot their frugal ways. Fortunately for some of us 'oldsters' those lessons were absorbed.
Since the 1950's we have had generations of kids (I am one) who were raised in luxurious times. Sheltered from harm and coddled. Our parents and grands didn't want us to have to experience the hardships that they did. I don't know if that was a good thing given the blind and cavalier attitude that young people today have. They think that a slow internet speed is a disaster and can't imagine a world without heat and hot water on demand. The vision of empty grocery store shelving is incomprehensible.
These coddled generations, who take for granted the luxuries that they live with, have no idea of what is coming. They have no coping skills. They have never been tested.
It is going to be ugly.
@ Inga, did you check Michael K's link? Good stock market =/ good economy.
Be happy, Inga, you'll have abortion & gay marriage 24/7.
Food and other stuff, maybe not.
I'll take my profits & protect what I can.
Oh, yes, how could I forget?
FORWARD!
Zeb Coulter sez not to be happy bout nuttin!
Keep Sabotagin!!!!!!
"Good stock market =/ good economy."
Good stock market usually means an expectation of a good economy in the future. But now, I think Rusty's right. There's no place else to put it. Euro-bonds, anyone?
garage - corporate profits are at record levels, but the little guy gets none of it. So what are you crowing about?
I was in Russia for the first anniversary of their new Independence Day, of which they joked: independent from whom? The economic conditions were still as they had been a year before under Communist Party rule: empty shelves in most stores. Sometimes you would see a long winding line outside a store. If you asked the people in line what they were waiting for, they couldn't tell you. A line outside a store was a signal that SOMEthing was being sold, and it rapidly attracted buyers, to whom it didn't matter what the item on sale was. Even if they themselves couldn't use it, they might be able to trade it for something they did need. This was what daily life was like for those outside of the nomenklatura, and, because it had been like this for decades, everyone considered it *normal*. I'm glad I got to see it without having to live it.
I still worry and can't sleep at night when I think of some of my long time former clients who have bond heavy portfolios. They are all elderly and rely on the income and are very risk adverse. Unfortunately, bond are now among the most risky investments. You can't convince them of this though. I just hope they have found adequate investment advisors.
Some are lucky in that they have bonds with good solid companies. NON CALLABLE, insured bonds that are paying high rates. They 'might' be ok when rates begin to skyrocket and only lose some of their portfolio value depending on the bond duration and possibly the income will still be adequate.
Some are not so lucky as they got into the bond market later and have issues that will be called away in a short time while rates are still low, leaving them with their options to reinvest in this current horribly artificial low rate environment. Lowering their income and exposing them to their portfolio tanking when rates rise and unable to cash out at anything near par value. More likely 30 cents on the dollar.
What to do....what to do. I worry about them. But...it isn't my business anymore.
I'd say this will last 6 months to 1 more year. If you have a 401k, I'd be moving it out into tangibles. Unless someone else has a better idea.
Good stock market usually means an expectation of a good economy in the future.
Sometimes, but there is also a good stock market going on before a major crash.
Tulip prices were awesome until they weren't.
"Tulip prices were awesome until they weren't."
I've never understood that. Tulip bulbs? Seriously?
garage - corporate profits are at record levels, but the little guy gets none of it. So what are you crowing about?
he's crowing about corporate profits being at record highs and the little guy getting none of it, duh. Dems love poor people, because poor people vote Democratic. It is in garage's best interest as a shill for the Dems for there to be more poor people.
Tulip bulbs? Seriously?
They were so pretty, though!
Everyone knows the DJIA is being artificially inflated by the Fed. The NASDAQ is more of a bellweather.
From Wiki:
"The price of tulips skyrocketed because of speculation in tulip futures among people who never saw the bulbs. "
There is nothing new under the sun.
"They were so pretty, though!"
Never trust the pretty ones.
"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."Charles McKay
A must read. Nothing new.
Original Mike said...
It's time to get off, but there's really no place to put the money. I'm thinking about burying it in the backyard.
Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Diversify. Bury some of it in my backyard.
OK. Whatcha' going to bury in mine?
Via Drudge:
(CNSNews.com) - The impending sequester did not prevent the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from acting in late February to seal a $50-million deal to purchase new uniforms for its agents--uniforms that will be partly manufactured in Mexico.
Soon after this new investment in TSA uniforms, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Americans that the lines are already lengthening at airports due to the sequester....
Plus thei allowance was increased last fall, so add another $9 mil to that figure?
"They will then sit on cash and wait for the moment to get back in and make out like bandits when the panic sales start. I have been to this rodeo before. "
That didn't work well in Weimar, which is what we are. The kids who were agile made out OK but those who sat on cash needed wheelbarrows to wheel it to the store to buy bread.
The stock market is largely speculative and has been going from one optimistic headline to the next.
Bonds are a lot more long haul oriented and less flighty and the bond market is terrible.
"Blogger Dust Bunny Queen said...
I still worry and can't sleep at night when I think of some of my long time former clients who have bond heavy portfolios. They are all elderly and rely on the income and are very risk adverse. Unfortunately, bond are now among the most risky investments. You can't convince them of this though. I just hope they have found adequate investment advisors."
I live in a retirement community most of the time. I'm in Tucson this week.
The retirement community has always had the reputation as being pretty affluent. These days, I see vacancies and renters all around me. For sale signs are common, also, and they stay there. I'm renting because I didn't know if I wanted to live there. Of 20 units around me, I guess maybe half are owned by the occupants, maybe less. Another quarter are empty.
I'm not a fan of the liberal Alan Blinder. I do believe that most corporations are making good profits after having gotten lean and mean the last few years unlike our big spending government. Is the market going to continue to go up? I hope so because I'm fully invested in stocks and I'm hoping that we can have a growing economy despite the socialist Obama and his like minded Dem friends in Congress. It looks like growth is the only way we can reduce the government spending as a percentage of our GDP.
The End is nigh!
Doom is imminent...sell everything...
Because of the feds easy money policy stocks are the only game in town.
machine said...
Keep Sabotagin!!!!!!
From your lips to Obama's ears.
machine said...
The End is nigh!
Doom is imminent...sell everything...
Even Dr Evil is cashing out his bank stocks.
Ever hear the phrase, "Judas goat"?
DANGER, DANGER!! GLOBAL WARMING!
Camels are the poster animals for the desert, but researchers now have evidence that these shaggy beasts once lived in the Canadian High Arctic.
The fossil remains of a 3.5-million-year-old camel were found on Ellesmere Island in Canada's northernmost territory, Nunavut. The camel was about 30 percent bigger than modern camels and was identified using a technique called collagen fingerprinting. The finding, detailed today (March 5) in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that modern camels stemmed from giant relatives that lived in a forested Arctic that was somewhat warmer than today...........
Kerry Stammers: 'Can't Answer' Why No One Allowed To Interview Benghazi Survivors
A school district is attempting to force teachers to pay union dues for the next 10 years, despite being located in Michigan, which is now a right-to-work state that specifically prohibits mandatory unionization.
Michigan became the 24th right-to-work state in December. But the law doesn’t take effect until March 28 — giving unions time to grandfather in their contracts if they can get them approved before the deadline. As part of this effort, the Taylor School District approved an entirely separate “union security agreement” that will force teachers to keep paying the union until 2023.
Under the security agreement, teachers’ only options will be to pay union dues, or pay an agency fee amounting to about $800 a year.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/03/05/teachers-fight-back-after-union-locks-in-dues-payments-for-next-10-years/#ixzz2MhyPuw1J
teachers-fight-back-after-union-locks-in-dues-payments-for-next-10-years
That's beautiful!
For retirement: short term treasuries and live essentially off principal, a fixed percentage every year.
You do that anyway but just don't notice when there's inflation and higher interest, because the units keep changing as the dollar inflates.
Michael K said...
"They will then sit on cash and wait for the moment to get back in and make out like bandits when the panic sales start. I have been to this rodeo before. "
That didn't work well in Weimar, which is what we are. The kids who were agile made out OK but those who sat on cash needed wheelbarrows to wheel it to the store to buy bread.
3/5/13, 3:04 PM
That actually worked rather well in Chile after Allende trashed the economy. In Germany, not so much because of Hitler. Still a number of people that could in Weimar Germany managed to make money out of cash by buying foreign currencies.
Unless you are expecting hyperinflation in the US in which case the cash to keep isn't in greenbacks, when interest rates start to rise stocks and current low interest bonds will crash. Buying those bonds when the prices go up could be quite profitable.
Still a number of people that could in Weimar Germany managed to make money out of cash by buying foreign currencies.
Which I'm pretty sure was made illegal.
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