Daily Investment Interpretations
January 4, 2009
2009-1-5:
Pre-Market Monday Update:
China to cool, not crash, and emerge a winner in
2009: Citi Is this sufficiently dependable to lend credence to
Cabot's China and Emerging Markets "Buy" signal?
Marketwatch
offers this for 2009: Starting over.
2009-1-4:
Sunday Night Update:
The U. S. Futures
Indicators are suggesting a slightly lower opening tomorrow. Of
course, it's very early for a valid market forecast, and the numbers can
change markedly between now and tomorrow morning. Here are a few of
tonight's economic headlines.
Mishkin says current shock worse than Great Depression
Economists agree U.S. needs more government spending.
This article observes that,
"A pickup sometime after June is
still the Federal Reserve's quasi-official forecast. And leading
institutional forecasters surveyed by the Blue Chip Economic Indicators
are optimistic. But that forecast seemed woefully out of touch to many
experts who spoke at the annual meeting of the American Economics
Association. President Reagan's top economic advisor, prominent
Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein says, "I think we're
going to be lucky if we see this recession end -- reach a trough -- in
2009." Alan Blinder, former Fed vice-chairman, says, "We are in
a horrible mess. I believe it is very young and it is going to be long and
deep," "This is the granddaddy of all" crises, said Alan
Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics in New York.
These comments by some of our top-seeded economists are
less optimistic than the leading international forecasters surveyed by the
Blue Chip Economic Indicators. It's worth remembering that only a few
months ago, in August, the buzz was all about the inflation that was going
to hit in 2009. Also, all last spring, the "blue-ribbon"
economists quoted in the financial media were predicting a turnaround in
the second half of 2008. Meanwhile, Paul Krugman predicts a bottom at best
toward the end of 2009, and Nouriel Roubini says there's a 2/3rds chance
the markets will bottom at the end of 2009
Confidence sags, IMF is more pessimistic, Blanchard says