Rosie was on the wrong side of the trade in April 2011 when the bear went bullish. Is he again now?
He uses the same phrase, too, "not throwing in the towel", lol.
In April 2011 he claimed he wasn't throwing in the bear towel after the S&P 500 had already recovered from the 2008 debacle. Then the market slid 20% all the way to October 3, 2011, with the index falling to 1099 again, right where it was exactly three years earlier on the very same date.
It was . . . spooky!
If you had followed his take that April, you'd have lost 20% again. On top of all your losses in 2008. Ouch. Ouch.
Many of us who had kept our powder dry couldn't believe it in October 2011. We thought we were headed back to the depths of March 2009 again, too, just like the last time the market fell to 1099. I mean, that was a free-fall from there in 2008. TARP got signed in a panic that week to stop it, to no avail.
But October 2011 turned out to be more of a retest than we realized, one of the last great buying opportunities of the period. It was a brutal, crushing period of doubt, which some of us still live with.
Now it's the reverse, with unbelievable euphoria everywhere, with the S&P 500 at 6075.
A period of euphoria seems to me like a damned strange time to throw in the bear towel again, after missing out for two years by his own admission. I have no idea if Rosie is the contrary indicator he appears to be.
But the valuation of the market is pre-1920s crazy right now. It is literally not on the charts of our experience in the post-war, or even from the roaring '20s. We have GDP of $29.354 trillion, meaning a valuation of 207, when fair value has been 81 since the Great Depression.
I'm not in it, and I intend to keep staying out, because I can.
Good luck out there to those of you who go where angels fear to tread.
