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The stock market is surging again to new highs and I’m asking myself, “who the hell is buying right now? Are
investors insane?”
- fundamentals are deteriorating;
- technically stocks remain in an uptrend but there are red flags (divergences) everywhere;
- greed is off the charts; and
- the macro/structural backdrop is no longer supportive of risk taking.
Still investors just can’t seem to keep their “extreme greed” in check and the divide between price and reality is getting more massive every day.
The above are edited excerpts from an article* by Jesse Felder (thefelderreport.com) entitled The “Honey Badger” Stock Market.
The following article is presented by Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making Money!) and the FREE Market Intelligence Report newsletter (sample here) and has been edited, abridged and/or reformatted (some sub-titles and bold/italics emphases) for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. This paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.
Felder goes on to say in further edited excerpts:
It seems the only reason to buy stocks right now is because others are buying (the trend remains in place) which is fine. As always, this works until it doesn’t. Trend following is a valid investment process but don’t delude yourself into thinking there is any other reason to buy right now – and the longer this goes on, buying only because others are buying, the more painful the reckoning will be.
Wall Street insiders understand this all too well. That’s why they’re all lining up to sound the alarm. The Fed gets it, too, and they’re also openly expressing their worries. Still, investors clearly don’t give a s*** as they continue to pour money into the market.
Oh, you don’t buy the idea that Joe Retail is in the market? Then how to you explain the fact that only one point in the past 75 years has seen retail investors hold a larger allocation to the stock market? (Coincidentally, stocks have only been this overvalued once during that span, as well.)
The fact is, investors have never embraced risk to the degree that they are doing today, right now and they’re doing it by buying leveraged ETFs and Junk Bonds like there’s no tomorrow. Problem is there is a tomorrow – and when investors try to get out of these things they’re going to realize that they took on WAY more risk than they ever imagined when they first bought them.
The great irony is they are once again doing all of this at exactly the wrong time.
- The economy contracted in Q1,
- The corporate profits bubble could finally be bursting.
- Margins declined in the first three months of the year,
- All that cash on corporate balance sheets that the bulls keep talking about (and which Stephanie Pomboy reminds us resides at only a handful of firms, anyway) actually contracted, as well.
- To top it off the Fed is tightening! Yes, tapering = tightening – and if QE was bullish then the removal of QE is bearish. Period.
…Call it a blowoff. Call it a Wile E. Coyote moment. Call it a divergence. Call it a disconnect. Call it a lapse of judgement. Call it whatever you want.
I’ll call the “Honey Badger” market because:
This is one “crazy, nastyass” stock market – and I can’t believe I’m watching it happen all over again.
Editor’s Note: The author’s views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.
*http://thefelderreport.com/2014/06/06/the-honey-badger-stock-market/
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