Sobering Column by Tom Stevenson

Tom Stevenson isn't a technical analyst. And I'm not, either (as a value guy, that's no surprise). Yet his Daily Telegraph column makes interesting reading. Even if you, like me, don't quite know what to make of it.

A bit:

It is not inconceivable that another big down-leg is what the markets have in store for us. This is the scale of what happened to investors during the Great Depression. But to believe this outcome you have to also accept some pretty ghoulish forecasts for the global economy. You have to believe, for example, that the entire financial world order which has held for decades has come to an end and that much of the wealth creation of the post-war period has been an illusion.

Comments

[Zitron]

It seems a pretty large exaggeration to say that "You have to believe, for example, that the entire financial world order which has held for decades has come to an end and that much of the wealth creation of the post-war period has been an illusion."

In fact, at these levels, we are *beyond* the level at which Greenspan made his famous "irrational exuberance" speech (December 1996). Of course, so we should remove from that level the "irrational exuberance" part, and add the wealth creation of the last 15 years or so. What is in fact happening is that we are reassessing how much wealth has been created in this shorter period, rather than the whole post-war period.

Even though I definitely see the point of exaggerating as a rhetorical figure of speech, I also believe that journalists pay no good service to their readers by doing it so at the point of stretching the truth too much.

[CONTROLLED GREED.com]

Zitron: I see your point, and even agree with it. Perhaps Stevenson was getting at this being worse than expected. I dunno. I was actually paying more attention to the first two sentences in the bit I highlighted.