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It Would Take An ‘Immaculate Conception’ To Create Bear Market In Stocks Right Now:

FYI: ( With yesterday close of 2553, the S&P 500 index is 53 points higher than the most optimist forecasts at the beginning of 2017 according to Bloomberg.)

How strong is the uptrend in the U.S. stock market? So strong that, according to one analyst, it would take divine intervention to stop it.

“From a purely technical point of view, if a bear market is born this month it would have to be considered the result of some sort of ‘immaculate conception,’” wrote Doug Ramsey, chief investment officer of the Leuthold Group.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/it-would-take-an-immaculate-conception-to-create-bear-market-in-stocks-right-now-analyst-2017-10-13/print

Bloomberg Article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-13/even-bulls-getting-left-in-dust-as-s-p-500-climbs-for-fifth-week

Comments

  • edited October 2017
    Probably Mr. Ramsey could have used a more apropos metaphor than 'immaculate conception'. Mixing religious concepts with the tawdry business of pricing paper in the capital markets is probably not a good idea. While I am not a religious person, using a term which connotes a unique miracalous event as the possible cause for a negative event (a decline in equity values), strikes me an offputting juxtaposition.

    Perhaps Mr. Ramsey might consider instead citing a "Black Swan" or "exogenous- or geopolitical-shock"...

    As to the gist of Mr. Ramsey's thoughts, I was immediately reminded of the following quote by then Yale economist Irving Fisher:

    “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau,”



  • edited October 2017
    Edmond said:

    Mixing religious concepts with the tawdry business of pricing paper in the capital markets is probably not a good idea.

    Well said, Edmond. I agree. But the curious juxtaposition has at times made for some great literature.

    From Washington Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker,

    Tom was the universal friend to the needy, and acted like "a friend in need"; that is to say, he always exacted good pay and security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages, gradually squeezed his customers closer and closer, and sent them at length, dry as a sponge, from his door.

    As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next ... He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent church-goer. He prayed loudly and strenuously, as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell when he had sinned most during the week by the clamor of his Sunday devotion.
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