Friday, February 22, 2013

"Roubini: Short-Term Bullish, Long-Term Catastrophic"

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
It ends not with a bang but a wimper.
-T.S. Elliot

From Yahoo Finance's Daily Ticker:
Two days of weakness in stocks after the Fed hinted it might “vary the pace of asset purchases” has some folks ready to declare the bull market over and done.

“Exit any and all bullish constructed positions and rush to the sidelines," declares veteran trader and newsletter writer Dennis Gartman.

Others, including Pimco’s Mohammed El-Arian, “Gloom Boom and Doom” author Marc Faber and hedge fund manager Doug Kass have made similar comments in recent days, albeit sans Gartman’s dramatics.

Given this backdrop and with the economy facing myriad headwinds from the payroll tax hike, rising gasoline prices and the pending sequester it may come as a surprise that one notable guru is very bullish on financial assets, at least for the near term: Nouriel Roubini.

As with most financial issues these days, the NYU Professor and chairman of Roubini Global Economics says it all come down to the aggressive policies of the Federal Reserve and other global central bankers, notably Japan.

“The risk of the end game from QE is not going to be goods inflation, it's not going to be a rout in the bond market,” Roubini says. “The risk is like during the 2003-06 [cycle] - we're exiting very slowly and we got an asset bubble.”

Actually, Roubini predicts the coming (arguably ongoing) asset bubble is going to be “bigger than the one we had in 2003-06,” which is somewhat shocking given the massive excesses that occurred in that era, especially in housing and related finance....MORE
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