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Category Archives: greedometer

Short Economic Stories Feb 11 2012

  In the US: The latest economic false dawn resembles last year’s false dawn -and that of 2010- in so many ways: Stock markets are up — where they were in 2011, and within range of  the 2007 and 2000 levels.  Pundits in 2011 were forecasting 3-4% GDP growth. What we ended up with was annualized growth rates of 0.4% growth in Q1 2011 and 1.6% […] Read the rest of this entry »

Short Economic Stories Jan 21 2012

Big Picture: Warning: The mini greedometer (tactical risk indicator) is displaying readings previously only seen when the S&P500 was within 5% of a secular (long term) top. The greedometer (strategic risk indicator) is approaching dangerous risk levels as well. There is very little upside and a great deal of downside to risk assets (stocks, junk bonds, commodities, REITs) at this time. A much more […] Read the rest of this entry »

Short Economic Stories

Big Picture: The balance sheet recession continues here in the US, and in Japan and Europe. As Reinhart & Rogoff suggested in their book – This Time Is Different – we can expect recessions to come more frequently and economic growth to be more shallow than we’ve come to expect over the past several decades. The greedometer and mini greedometer are showing some very […] Read the rest of this entry »

Year End Letter 2011 (& 2012 Forecast)

Strategic Indicator:  Greedometer Last week, the greedometer registered 5400 rpm, a respectable but not unexpected jump from the previous week 4800rpm. And with that, we have the end of the year-end rise in the greedometer.  The 2011 set of greedometer readings resemble that of 2007. Indeed, both years saw the last or second to last week finish with a 5400rpm reading. Uncanny.  And foreboding.   (the […] Read the rest of this entry »

Greedometer : December 16 2011

The greedometer registered 4600 rpm.   2011 continues to resemble a compressed version of 2007-2008.  The mini greedometer is topping-out for this cycle. There’s a new leg down about to begin.

Europe needs a sucker. Pick up a mirror.

This is unreal. Early this morning central bankers made a surprise coordinated move to stop the banking system melt-down in Europe from worsening there, and from spreading beyond Europe. The debt-fueled financial system contagion has been slowly steam-rolling everything in its path. It had reached the point where banks in Europe could not stop it, were not lending to each other, and the ECB was unwilling/unable […] Read the rest of this entry »

Mini greedometer

  Either the US economy and stock market are about to “get well” and initiate another bull market, or things are about to take another leg down.  My short term indicator -the mini greedometer- helps provide insight…. The past 4 weeks have seen a stunning amount (all-in?) of bluster, threats, hope, hype, and political games in Europe. Yet there remains no plan to solve […] Read the rest of this entry »

Greedometer update

            Last week the greedometer dropped to 3800 rpm.  The nearest analogue – in terms of how the greedometer is behaving — is September 2008. Here’s the historical chart showing the greedometer readings over the past 12 years, and matched to the S&P500…. The red circles are where we are now, and the same reading from the previous 2 […] Read the rest of this entry »