James Grant, "People Especially Overdo it on the Downside"

James Grant, always the skeptic, is surprisingly bullish on the prospects for the economy which he calls "pretty darn zippy."

In an interview broadcast on October 30th with Consuela Mack, Grant says we've learned nothing from the crisis. However, Grant says all of the cycles are all a little bit different, but essentially the same, and investors need to invest when the death of equities is widely proclaimed.

Source:

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1125967528?bclid=1125949998&bctid=48431455001
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Gary Shilling Believes Stocks Could Fall 35%

According to Forbes, Gary Shilling thinks stocks have overrun reality and are in a bubble. Shilling believes the economy will head back down and the S&P 500 could possibly break below the March 2009 low of 667.

“Consumers are still very cautious. They're still retrenching. They're still pushing their saving rate up for the first time in 25 years,” Shilling said.

Source:

http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/shilling_stock_bubble/2009/11/05/282141.html
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Warren Buffett's Weaknesses

Chris Hill interviews Alice Schroeder, author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. Schroeder describes a typical day with WB and then discusses some of his weaknesses - for example, he isn't a very good listener and tends to ignore dissenting opinions. Also, Buffett's greed and focus on money interfered with his family relationships.

There are 2 other segments of the interview available at the source below.

Source:

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/11/09/interview-with-alice-schroeder-buffetts-biggest-we.aspx
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Jim Rogers: Roubini...Does Not Understand Markets

Wall St. Cheat Sheet has an interesting interview with legendary investor Jim Rogers, who begins by ranting about talk of a bubble in commodities by Nouriel Roubini or anyone else.

Rogers goes on to talk about the positive fundamentals for gold even though he prefers silver, cotton and coffee which he considers more depressed.

Rogers said he isn't short anything, which is very unusual for him. He believes the massive amount of money being printed around the world has to go somewhere and shorting doesn't make sense in this environment.

Source:

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/knowledge/interview-knowledge/exclusive-interview-jim-rogers-on-gold-bubbles-commodites-equities-and-roubini/?p=3528/
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Investors Avoid Equity Mutual Funds

Mark Hulbert reports that, despite the huge rally in the stock market, investors haven't increased their inflows to equity funds to the same degree as in the past.

From the market’s March 9 low through the 2009 high on Oct. 19 — while the broad market averages rose by nearly 70 percent — there was a net inflow of just $7.8 billion into domestic equity funds, according to TrimTabs Investment Research of Sausalito, Calif. Conrad Gann, the firm’s president and chief operating officer, said, “If this had been a normal market environment, we would have expected a net inflow of at least $150 billion.”

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/business/economy/08stra.html
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Investor Sentiment Takes a Surprising Turn

Trader's Narrative blog analyzes investor sentiment each week and has noticed an unusual amount of bearishness in the latest report from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). There are only 22% of investors reported as bullish and 56% as bears. The last time the spread was this large was in February 2009 when the market was much lower. A longer term chart is available below (click on for larger image).

SMA Comment: On a contrarian note, such a plunge in bullishness could mean this market mini-correction is almost over and we'll see new highs before the end of the year.

Source:
http://www.tradersnarrative.com/sentiment-overview-week-of-november-6th-2009-3178.html

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Bad Jobs Report....Again

Unemployment in this recession is the highest in 26 years. The economy is still losing jobs at a rate of over 2 million annually, and the unemployment rate is above 10%. Yesterday's report was worse than expected, but not as bad as earlier in the year. Calculated Risk has a chart (click on for larger image) showing how serious the situation is with no sign of reversing course.

Although things look bad now, when you look at 1974 it is possible to make a quick turnaround. This is the hope of the bulls right now.