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