[smith12]

Originally Posted by Slava

Interesting. I was going to dig out the financial turmoil thread just to comment on this today. Based purely on anecdotal information that I've heard from many economists and analysts I have the opposite impression.

Basically most people suggest that we've come too far, too fast and its not sustainable (speaking more about the stock market here, but certainly this is an economic reality as well). I don't want to derail the thread here, so I'll stop at that, but certainly that seems to be the pervasive attitude I've seen out there.

As far as making a short-term bet on the dollar its just that...a bet. You are gambling that over the next six months the dollar is going to move in a certain direction. I would consider that if you A) had the cash to lose and B) were maybe sitting at/near and all time high or low, but we're really in the middle here.

I
agree some people say the stock market has moved too far too fast, however other economists argue that it's just playing catch up. If you look at the current p/e ratios for most companies they still are not yet at the levels they were a year ago. The market had a complete melt down factored into the price of all stocks.

So to just say it has come too far too fast doesn’t really make sense? By the same token I could same it dropped to far too fast from Nov of last year to March. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was destined to move up.....

As for news on the recovery, I'm not sure how anyone could expect that it's not a recovery? All sectors except oil & gas have been killing earnings expectations. Furthermore, every economic report that comes out is beating analysts’ expectations. Today's consumer confidence report blew away even the most optimistic economists expectations. Several countries have even said they are out of the recession, those are facts.

As for Roubini, or whoever this guy is. Sure, he got lucky "predicting" the credit crunch back a year ago. He also predicted we were headed for a massive depression that he said could last 10 years similar to Japan. I'm not saying that's not going to happen but it sure seems unlikely at this point. So now all of a sudden he's saying we are coming out of a recession and warns of a double dip if oil prices stay high. Real bold prediction there. I give this guy no more creditability than I would any other economist.

My point is that anyone could have got lucky and predicated the current recession, that doesn't mean he's going to be right ever again.