Top strategists and chief investment officers comment on whether the market has hit bottom yet. (Dec. 20)
12/20/2008
"My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil." —John Paul Getty
Consumer Credit outstanding fell $14.8b in Sept seasonally adjusted, almost $5b more than expected and marks the 11th month in the past 12 of declines. At $2.456T outstanding, it is 4.9% below the record high in July '08. After a flat reading in Aug, (didn't fall b/c of the CARS program), non revolving debt outstanding fell by $4.9B. Revolving (mostly credit cards) balances outstanding fell by $9.9B. To fully put into perspective today's data, look at the current level of consumer credit (doesn't include mortgages, the biggest chunk of consumer credit) relative to GDP. As of Q3, it totaled 17.2%...
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December 22nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
Kopin,
an H&H NY to you too~
past that, he’s only ‘reporting’–’tis fine..
Prob is, that’s, almost, the same lame story we heard last year, from MainStream Economagicians, about ‘008…
“rebound” in 2H ‘009, my eye tooth..
December 22nd, 2008 at 6:30 am
If you keep calling bottoms, eventually you will be right. And this will continue as long as MSM outlets like CNBC have a vested interest in driving the market higher (generates more advertising revenue for them).
December 22nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
First, most of the clowns who are trotted out as ‘experts’ are just empty suits that never saw the problem coming. Second, most of these clowns keep talking about nominal levels and ignore what is really material. If we measure the Dow in ounces of gold or adjust it for the understated inflation that is reported by the government we find that the true performance of equities has been horrible. This is unlikely to change as the Fed does all that it can to protect reckless lenders and debtors by taking measures to devale the currency. The prudent investor should see through the veil of deceit and take measures to protect wealth by purchasing assets that the central banks cannot devalue by their activities.