US - 2009 Predictions

[winston]

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$SPX&p ... 8718676947

Hmmm.... isn't that a "M" forming on the Daily Chart ?

Intuitively, I think the US Market will not have a steep drop. Maybe just a "Water Torture". At the same time, I also dont see why the market would move higher as there's so much negativity out there ..

[OE2008]

OE2008 : sorry, i dont understand your point above...could you please elaborate your thoughts? thanks..

K,

My intention was to show how the SPX chart looks like during the 6 months from Mar to Sept 2003 and how closely it resembles the current chart in 2009. We know what happened in 2003 and beyond. SPX continued to trend upto Jan 2004. Could we be repeating the same pattern for Q4 in 2009? Circumstances in Sept 2003 were similarly depressing although recovering from the massive meltdown arising from the dot com/tech bust and the 911 event.

[kennynah]

thanks...noted

[LenaHuat]

Hi K and OE2008

Thanks a million for your generous sharing The stock market is a fair leveller. One's past performances is no indicator of the future. That's why I often venture out with my predictions abt the markets. I'm comfortable with being wrong as long as I'm right at BIG moments, and some 80% of the time

I wanna post the following 2 articles in its entirety as I think the msgs will come back to haunt us.

The first article is from WSJ :-

Warning: The Deficits Are Coming!
The former head of the Government Accountability Office is on a crusade to alert taxpayers to their true obligations.

By JOHN FUND
Washington, D.C.

David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer," he tells a meeting of the National Taxpayers Union, the nation's oldest anti-tax lobby. "Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!"

His audience sits in rapt attention. A few years ago these antitax activists would have been polite but a tad restless listening to the former head of the Government Accountability Office, the nation's auditor-in-chief. Higher taxes is what hikes their blood pressure the most, but the profligate spending of the Bush and Obama administrations has put them in a mood to listen to this green-eyeshade Cassandra. "He's so unlike most politicians," says Sharron Angle, a former state legislator from Nevada, "his message is clear, detailed and with no varnish."

Mr. Walker, a 57-year-old accountant, didn't set out to be a fiscal truth-teller. He rose to be a partner and global managing director of Arthur Anderson, before being named assistant secretary of labor for pensions and benefits during the Reagan administration. Under the first President Bush, he served as a trustee for Social Security and Medicare, an experience that convinced him both programs are looming train wrecks that could bankrupt the country. In 1998 he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the GAO, where he spent the next decade issuing reports trying to stem waste, fraud and abuse in government.

Despite many successes, he was able to make only limited progress in reforming Washington's tangled bookkeeping. When he arrived he was told the Pentagon was nearly a decade away from having a clean audit, or clear evidence that its financial statements were accurate. When he left in 2008, he was told the Pentagon was still a decade away from that goal. "If the federal government was a private corporation, its stock would plummet and shareholders would bring in new management and directors," he said as he retired from the GAO.

Although he found the work fulfilling, Mr. Walker said he decided to leave last year with a third of his 15-year term left because "there are practical limits on what one can—and cannot—do in that job." He became president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a group seeking to educate the public and policy makers on the need for fiscal prudence. Although it accepts private donations, its own future is secure given that Mr. Peterson, a former head of the Blackstone private equity firm and secretary of commerce under Richard Nixon, has endowed it with a $1 billion gift.

We met to hash over current events in his tastefully appointed office just off of New York's Fifth Avenue. Mr. Walker, a lean man with an unflappable demeanor, welcomed me with the observation that he's never been in more demand as a speaker "but it's only because everyone is so worried for our future."

His group calls itself strictly nonpartisan and nonideological, and that seems to limit how tough and specific it can be. Last year, it released a documentary "I.O.U.S.A.," that followed Mr. Walker as he toured the country on his fiscal "wake up" tour. The solutions the film proposes for the debt crisis are either glib or gray: The country should save more, reduce oil consumption, hold politicians accountable and get more value from health-care spending.

But in its diagnosis of the problem the film scores a bull's-eye. Among the fiscal hawks featured in the film is Rep. Ron Paul, who memorably tells Alan Greenspan that if doctors had the same success rate in meeting his goals as the Fed has had, patients would be dead all over America.

Mr. Walker's own speeches are vivid and clear. "We have four deficits: a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit," he tells one group. "We are treating the symptoms of those deficits, but not the disease."

Mr. Walker identifies the disease as having a basic cause: "Washington is totally out of touch and out of control," he sighs. "There is political courage there, but there is far more political careerism and people dodging real solutions." He identifies entrenched incumbency as a real obstacle to change. "Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats Lena : now that sounds like us here in Singapore, doesn't itwhere they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them," he laments. He believes gerrymandering should be curbed and term limits imposed if for no other reason than to inject some new blood into the system. On campaign finance, he supports a narrow constitutional amendment that would bar congressional candidates from accepting contributions from people who can't vote for them: "If people can't vote in a district not their own, should we allow them to spend unlimited money on behalf of someone across the country?"

Recognizing those reforms aren't "imminent," Mr. Walker wants Congress to create a "fiscal future commission" that would hold hearings all over America to move towards a consensus on reform. It would then present Congress with a "grand bargain" on entitlement and budget-control reforms. Its recommendations would be guaranteed a vote in Congress and be subject to only limited amendments. I note that critics have called such a commission an end-run around the normal legislative process. He demurred, saying that Congress would still have to approve any recommendations in an up-or-down vote—much like the successful base-closing commission created by GOP Rep. d**k Armey in the 1980s.

What kind of reforms would Mr. Walker hope the commission would endorse? He suggests giving presidents the power to make line-item cuts in budgets that would then require a majority vote in Congress to override. He would also want private-sector accounting standards extended to pensions, health programs and environmental costs. "Social Security reform is a layup, much easier than Medicare," he told me. He believes gradual increases in the retirement age, a modest change in cost-of-living payments and raising the cap on income subject to payroll taxes would solve its long-term problems.

Medicare is a much bigger challenge, exacerbated by the addition of a drug entitlement component in 2003, pushed through a Republican Congress by the Bush administration. "The true costs of that were hidden from both Congress and the people," Mr. Walker says sternly. "The real liability is some $8 trillion."

That brings us to the issue of taxes. Wouldn't any "grand bargain" involve significant tax increases that would only hurt the ability of the economy to grow? "Taxes are going upPoor Californians will know this!, for reasons of math, demographics and the fact that elements of the population that want more government are more politically active," he insists. "The key will be to have tax reform that simplifies the system and keeps marginal rates as low as possible. The longer people resist addressing both sides of the fiscal equation the deeper the hole will get."

I steer towards the fiscal direction of the Obama administration. He says his stimulus bill was sold as something it wasn't: "A number of people had agendas other than stimulus, and they shaped the package."

As for health care, Mr. Walker says he had hopes for comprehensive health-care reform earlier this year and met with most of the major players to fashion a compromise. "President Obama got the sequence wrong by advocating expanding coverage before we've proven our ability to control costs," he says. "If we don't get our fiscal house in order, but create new obligations we'll have a Thelma and Louise moment where we go over the cliff." Mr. Walker's preferred solution is a plan that combines universal coverage for all Americans with an overall limit on the federal government's annual health expenditures. His description reminds me of the unicorn—a marvelous creature we all wish existed but is not likely to ever be seen on this earth.

As I prepare to go, Mr. Walker returns to the theme of economic education. Poor schools often produce young people with few tools to help them realize the extent of the fiscal trap their generation is going to fall into.

One way the Peterson Foundation wants to change that is to bring big numbers down to earth so people can comprehend them. "Our $56 trillion in unfunded obligations amount to $483,000 per household. That's 10 times the median household income—so it's as if everyone had a second or third mortgage on a house equal to 10 times their income but no house they can lay claim to." As for this year's likely deficit of $1.8 trillion, Mr. Walker suggests its size be conveyed thusly: "A deficit that large is $3.4 million a minute, $200 million an hour, $5 billion a day," he says. That does indeed put things into perspective.

Despite an occasional detour into support for government intervention, Mr. Walker remains the Jeffersonian he grew up as in his native Virginia. "I view the Constitution with deep respect," he told me. "My ancestors and those of my wife fought and died in the Revolution, and I care a lot about returning us to the principles of the Founding Fathers."

He notes that today the role of the federal government has grown such that last year less than 40% of it related to the key roles the Founders envisioned for it: defense, foreign policy, the courts and other basic functions. "What happened to the Founders' intent that all roles not expressly reserved to the federal government belong to the states, and ultimately the people?" he asks. "I'm pleased the recent town halls show people are waking up and realizing it's time to pay attention to first principles."

With that we parted, as he had to get back to work. Today's Paul Revere is hard at work on a book due out in January from Random House that will be called, "Come Back America."

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

The second piece follows in the next post.

[LenaHuat]

This article from from The Telegraph :

China alarmed by US money printing.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Cernobbio, Italy

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".

"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como. "If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.

China's reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world's largest.

"Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets," he added. The comments suggest that China has become the driving force in the gold market and can be counted on to buy whenever there is a price dip, putting a floor under any correction.

Mr Cheng said the Fed's loose monetary policy was stoking an unstable asset boom in China. "If we raise interest rates, we will be flooded with hot money. We have to wait for them. If they raise, we raise.

"Credit in China is too loose. We have a bubble in the housing market and in stocks so we have to be very careful, because this could fall down

Mr Cheng said China had learned from the West that it is a mistake for central banks to target retail price inflation and take their eye off assets.
"This is where Greenspan went wrong from 2000 to 2004," he said. "He thought everything was alright because inflation was low, but assets absorbed the liquidity."

Mr Cheng said China had lost 20m jobs as a result of the crisis and advised the West not to over-estimate the role that his country can play in global recovery. China's task is to switch from export dependency to internal consumption, but that requires a "change in the ideology of the Chinese people" to discourage excess saving. "This is very difficult".

Mr Cheng said the root cause of global imbalances is spending patterns in US (and UK) and China.
"The US spends tomorrow's money today," he said. "We Chinese spend today's money tomorrow. That's why we have this financial crisis."

Yet the consequences are not symmetric. "He who goes borrowing, goes sorrowing," said Mr Cheng.
It was a quote from US founding father Benjamin Franklin.

[OE2008]

Hi LH,

Always respect your market views.

I have not read or heard of David Walter or Cheng Siwei. Nevertheless, it is always refreshing to read ex-insiders who are willing to share their honest views. I am afraid that there is not enough of such disclosures. We get to hear much of the Greenspan type of 'justfications' for their mis reading of market conditions.

There are alot of very negative views on how the market will unfold in the future from the likes of Ron Paul, Gerald Celente, Louisa Yamada, not to mention Peter Schiff, Nouriel Roubini and Jim Rogers. Even Mohamed El-Erian has weighed in calling the rebound, sugar coated. The problem is that we never quite know when this would all end. A possible scenario is for a range-bound market quite like 1966-83?

[LenaHuat]

Hi OE2008

Thank Q for your kind remarks. The equities market is by nature a contrarian one - every seller has a buyer. No 2 person thinks alike. No one should think the same way all the time except a fanatic (one who cannot change his mind and/or won't change the topic...I think this was a quote from yesterday's newspapers).

Only hindsight will set my record in stone.
Right now, I'm comfortable foregoing maybe 10% 'gains' because I think the downside probability is higher.

A possible scenario is for a range-bound market quite like 1966-83?

If this is so, than people of my generation are lucky. We've had at least 2 fantastic secular bull cycles.
Those who are in their early 30's will be .
No two generation share the same opportunities in a similar 30-year investment span.

However, I'm optimistic that it will not be so. Yesterday, I was happy to hear President Obama announced this :-

President Obama's announcement of his selection of Ron Bloom as "manufacturing czar".

It's extremely critical that the US manufacturing sector regains its vigour and innovative leadership. I have given my reasons in my earlier postings in this thread.

[kennynah]

i am also of the opinion that for any economy to thrive, it is not in how the monetary or fiscal policies are formulated...these are simply tools bureaucrats adopt to manipulate and control the state of economic activities.

the only road to success, is in offering quality goods and impeccable services that are either in demand or to create sustained demand for them. therefore, as a country, it must continuously encourage its people to be innovative and entrepreneurial... it has been in this regard that US and Europe have led the way in the last century. i believe they will continue successfully for some more decades to come.

so long as the americans persevere to develop and usher technological advances in all fields, they will eventually dig themselves out of this hole.

this is also the reason why I do not see our country becoming significantly prosperous in the years ahead, not unless we become a nation of thinkers, innovators and creators at the global scale.

[winston]

Dear All,

I've split out the various discussions on Government Debts and started a new thread titled "Government Debts", located in the "Other Investment Ideas" section.

Take care,
Winston

[LenaHuat]

Some 3 weeks later, I'm reminding myself abt all the preceding posts.

Americans are so worried abt the future.Those who go borrowing goes sorrowing

I'm more worried abt the 1Q 2010