Most of you have probably already seen the bullgasm happening over at Barron's. Here's their cover for the week:
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.
Schadenfreude – Sing With Me!
The German Squeeze Play (by Vandalay)
One of the phenomena that behavioral economists and psychologists have identified as being part of our decision making process is happening now. The perils of complexity refers to the phenomena where the more complex a decision the more we fall back on simplistic solutions.
In the case of Greece, the number of variables, parties involved and lack of precedents has resulted in the market saying in effect " This is too hard to figure out so I'm just going to wait until it is easier to quantify, then I'll re-price the risk"
Meanwhile Germany is exhibiting the classic signs of an employer who really wants an employee to quit, but doesn't want to pay severance. Over the last few weeks Germany has progressively increased the cost to Greece of staying in the EU by introducing tougher conditionality for any release of funds. Germany wants Greece to leave so that it can redeploy the funds where it is less likely to be a money sinkhole. But they want the process to be sufficiently drawn out that the market has time to adjust. In this regard they are mostly succeeding. We now have Dutch EU Commissioners openly talking about Greece leaving the EU and the market doesn't even blink.
However the market has not priced in the risk because it is too complex. If Greece leaves, as I now think they will, there will be a re-pricing of risk. It will not be a Lehman event, but it should be the catalyst for at least a modest (2-5 %) correction.
Just don't ask me when…..
Jealousy, Perspective, and Peace
I am a middle-aged man, but in the years I have lived, I have at least amassed enough wisdom to know intuitively that I am still naive. We're always learning and, hopefully, getting wiser, so in an absolute sense, I'll die a naive man.
But I'm not as dim as I was as a teenaged-Tim, so allow me to start this essay with a couple of background facts.
Gold Stocks (NFTRH172 Excerpt)
Gold Stocks
This is a snippet from NFTRH172 focusing on the writer's methods of viewing markets from a visual and psychological perspective. I just want readers to continually think about herds and about what it takes to be able to get contrary these herds at the appropriate times. NFTRH172 then proceeds on to actual intensive analysis of the precious metals sector and the macro market backdrop.
