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PETER BRIMELOW
No room to zoom?
Commentary: Stocks may face a dreary decade ahead
By Peter Brimelow & Edwin S. RubensteinLast Update: 10:16 AM ET Aug 21, 2006
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Every year or so, we chart the progress of the stock market in terms of its long-run "total return" trend. That's adding in capital gains and dividends, and adjusting for inflation. Our charts are based on the work of Professor Jeremy Siegel of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, author of the classic book, "Stocks For the Long-Run." See Siegel's Web site jeremysiegel.com for more information. (He doesn't always agree with our conclusions!) Siegel's most famous finding: stocks have accumulated on average in real terms at a remarkably consistent 7% or so over the last two hundred years. Shown on a log scale this consistent trend appears as a straight line.
Of course, you have to squint at the long-run chart to see movements that, when actually experienced, seem very dramatic. For that reason, we focus on stocks' movements around their long-term trend in just the last 10 years. Note: The long term trendline slopes upward on this chart, because is drawn on an arithmetic rather than a log scale. When we first looked at Siegel's numbers in the late 1990s, stocks were over 80% above the long-run total return trendline, about as high as they ever get. Stocks reached similar levels in 1928 and 1968 -- both years when the stock market was notoriously topping out. Stocks did fall after 2000 (remember?) But they never got lower than a few points below trend. Then the post-election Bush bounce in 2004-2005 took stocks to some 7% above trend.
After that, stocks stalled. That means that this time last year, because of that relentlessly accumulating trendline, stocks were down to less than 1% above it. See Aug. 26, 2005 column.
Now it's even tighter: Stocks are just 0.1% below trend, to be exact. And even that's still well above the levels usually seen at major bear market lows. In both 1931 and 1973, stocks got some 40% below trend. In other words, an epochal but not unprecedented bull market high has not yet, unlike in every other case on record, been succeeded by a corresponding bear market low.
This may sound worrying. But of course the major market indexes we're used to watching don't literally have to fall 40%. Because the underlying total return trend rises at some 7% a year, the indexes can just move sideways. How long? Well, adjusting just for dividends, if the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) moved sideways until 2019, that would be the equivalent of Siegel's broad, total-return measure of stocks getting 40% below trend. That's a 19-year stagnation in total, quite comparable to the Dow 16-year stagnation after 1966. On the bright side, if you assume inflation will be equal to the Dow's dividend yield, the stagnation will end in 2014. Whoopee! Obviously, Seigel's numbers reflect a very general truth. There's plenty of room for dramatic deviation within the long-term framework. Witness the Bush bounce. But, overall, it's hard to see much upside energy in stocks right now. Of course, that's about what we said when we first discussed Siegel's numbers. See April 16, 2003 column.
OK - the market's higher now. But it has still not exceeded 2000's peak. And its room to zoom is now much less.
Edwin S. Rubenstein is president of ESR Research in Indianapolis. (esrresearch.com) 
Viele Newsletter in USA sind bereits bärisch. Ist das ein Kontaindikator? Die Argumente stimmen soweit...
PAUL B. FARRELL
Tipping point pops bubble, triggers bear
Ten warnings the economy, markets have pushed into danger zone
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatchLast Update: 8:18 PM ET Aug 21, 2006
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- You heard the pop! Forget the happy talk. We just crossed that crucial tipping point, popping the bubble, signaling a bear. Why? The Fed halted interest rate increases.
That's bad news, says economist Gary Shilling. Check the historical data: "With only one clear exception in the mid-1990s, central bank ease since the mid-1950s means the economy is in a recession, or will be within a few months." My filing cabinets are bulging with all kinds of early-warning signals screaming that we've passed the tipping point. A few are deafening: One by the CEO of Countrywide Mortgage. Another by the CEO of Toll Bros. Then hedge fund losses drove us to pull together a total of 10 warnings that signal the popping of the bubble and the start of a recession and a bear market.
1. Mortgage lender: 'Never seen a soft landing'
When a CEO like Countrywide's Angelo Mozilo speaks, his message is far more important than all the happy talk coming out of Washington and Wall Street: "I've never seen a soft-landing in 53 years, so we have a ways to go before this levels out. I have to prepare the company for the worst that can happen." Investors better prepare too.
2. Housing warns of sustained downturn
Robert Toll, CEO of luxury home builder Toll Brothers reports dramatically declining sales and revenue. Toll says the slowdown "will last for at least six months more, it may last for two years more. We don't know." Reminds us of the 2000-2002 recession.
3. Hedge fund losers the past two months
Hedge funds have been in the news a lot since topping the $1 trillion mark in assets. This unregulated industry is a loose cannon. They've become the new dot-coms now that most retail markets are so volatile and flat, forcing portfolio managers and investors to look for alternatives to the $9 trillion mutual fund market. As a result, hedge funds are chasing anything that hints of higher returns. For example, the main data tracker, the Hennessey Group, just announced that hedge funds have underperformed the S&P 500 for the second straight month. Other warnings have all been reported in the news lately, screaming risk, risk, risk! Flashing like neon signs on the Vegas Strip:
And get this, hedge funds have been making big bets on Hollywood movies, using sophisticated programs to pick winners. This sounds like a sequel to the 1998 LTCM disaster; call it "Déjà vu Dot-coms!"
4. Rentals squeezing ARM borrowers
The cost of renting in Los Angeles is up 88% the past decade according to Realfacts. Santa Monica is up 279%. Potential buyers can't buy so they rent. And owners can't sell to recoup the high costs they paid in the recent bubble, so they're renting out. But they can't make enough to make their mortgage payments. USA Today estimates that nationwide median mortgage payments are $1,687 while rents are only $868. So now all the cheap money that sucked buyers into ARMs is putting the big squeeze on everybody, owners, renters and lenders, further driving inflation.
5. Inflation hits pickup truck sales
As new construction falls and gas prices skyrocket, pickup truck sales have been falling dramatically. So now, as Americans buy fuel-efficient Asian imports, the Big Three is paying a heavy price for relying too much on profits from gas-guzzlers. No wonder Toyota is now bigger than Ford, may soon pass GM.
6. Corrosive domestic oil policies
Free market? Or surreal? Since 2000 America's energy policies have been made in secret. Last year oil executives didn't have to testify in Congress under oath. This year as gasoline prices skyrocket, so do oil company profits and their executives compensation. So when we recently saw the Alaskan oil fields shut down because pipelines are physically corroded, the symbolism was obvious; America's energy policy is as corroded and corrupt as the oil companies poorly maintained pipes and their executives thinking.
7. Markets 'unfazed' by terror threats
The day after the recent bomb threat against 10 commercial aircraft traveling from Britain to the U.S., headlines read: "Markets unfazed!" Read that "oblivious." Yes, we all know that historically markets are resilient after major crises. But this lack of response reminds me of the happy talk during the 2000-2002 period when delusional bulls grabbed any excuse to deny America's long and painful freefall into a bear recession.
8. Main Street investor sentiment dropping
The gap between the top and bottom of America's economic classes is rapidly widening. Our "ownership society," a small group of investors that control over two-thirds of the stock market may be "unfazed." But the truth is, the incomes of America's middle class have been level, while inflation has been eating away at the incomes of minimum-wage workers. Most Americans aren't party to the drama played at the Wall Street casino, while insiders, corporate CEOs and Congress have all enjoyed substantial increases in personal income the past decade.
9. War costs accelerating
In spite of all the hype about controlling the insurgency, violence is increasing. Iraq can't stand up, so we can't stand down. We're trapped in a no-win, no-exit conflict, policing a civil war. And unfortunately America's domestic partisan politics is creating inflexible strategies that are draining huge resources: The Iraq and Afghan wars are now estimated to top $1.27 trillion amid mounting Middle East tensions and rising domestic terror threats, while a depleted military is unprepared for another major war.
10. Federal deficits grossly understated
Our government spending is totally out of control, no fiscal restraint, no legislative oversight and Enron-style accounting that disguises how bad things are. USA Today says federal deficits reported as $318 billion would actually be $760 billion if standard corporate accounting rules were used. And if we were honest and accounted for Social Security and Medicare costs, the deficit would be $3.5 trillion, 10 times what we're led to believe. Lay and Skilling were rank amateurs. Bottom line: All these signals tell us the tipping point was crossed, the bubble has popped and we are heading into another bear market and recession. Any comments?
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