Daily Bear Predictions

I have just returned to the states following a 9 day daily bear summit in Greece.

Master of ceremony was Professor "gold coin" Murray

after many Mythos (greek beer) and in-depth discussions with fellow bears I conclude the following


1. we remain in the early stages of this mortgage led fall out.

2. the housing market has yet to post significant price (as valued by actual sales data) declines

3. US job growth will continue to decline - hampering consumer spending and GDP

4. Money markets may be at risk - look beneath the covers and you'll understand why

5. Consumer spending is poised to post significant y/y declines as job growth declines, access to borrowing dissipates and mortgage equity withdrawal becomes non existent

6. commercial real estate market (the once untouchable) appears to be moderating at a pretty healthy clip - out of whack cap rates coupled with higher cost of borrowing (up 200 bps in the past few weeks) - this will lead to a significant deceleration of construction spending and almost certainly put us on a recession pace

7. expect to hear continued mark to market calls for leading financial institutions.

8. Europe remains in a bind - inflation remains at the high end of comfort while growth appears to be moderating - what can they do? conundrum to say the least

9. expect a rally in the dollar/Euro as rates have likely peaked in Europe and investors realize Europe GDP expectations are way out of whack

10. China - may be the prime story in 4Q - how much sub-prime paper does Chinese financial institutions hold? how much of a downturn in US consumer spending can China withstand? If China goes, look for Japan next

11. Recession - I believe we are already there - have never had two negative month to month loss of jobs without being in recession.. I believe...... could be wrong