Sign in
Become a MarketWatch member today
Outside the Box Archives | Email alerts
Sept. 23, 2011, 8:45 a.m. EDT
By James Altucher
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) "” The world is ending. You heard me. Europe is going to default. The U.S. will go into a depression, the dollar will shrink to nothing, Congress and Barack Obama will continue to fight in the Coliseum while us citizens shout and roar from the stands, and stocks will go down forever. To zero maybe.
All of that rioting that is in Libya will spread like a "contagion" to here. And in 13 billion years, the perimeter of the sun will be so wide it will suck us in, a cold dark Earth, a shadow of what it once was.
WSJ's Francesco Guerrera looks at reach and depth of the global stock market selloff, and the deepening negative market sentiment.
Do I worry? Me? Mr. "Dow 20,000?" Of course I do. I get worried that people will believe the lies listed above that are spread every day. The newspapers have to report the worries. That's a reasonable function; awareness is important. But then you have major responsibilities that most people forget: Analysis and Action. You need to look at the data and decide what is real and what is now. Then take action to make money.
Let's look at some basic facts:
A) The top eight banks in the United States have almost $1 trillion in capital and only $54 billion in exposure to the weakest Euro zone nations. Let them all default. Doesn't bother us.
B) In 1981-2, almost all of South America defaulted. The top eight banks then had 263% of their capital exposed to South America, based on accounting rules in place then. Guess what? We had a 20-year boom after that.
C) Is Europe a Lehman? One big difference (other than the obvious one I just mentioned: The banks in 2008 were subject to the brand new mark-to-market rule. Now they don't have to mark to market. They can make an assumption ("Europe will pay back eventually") and not have to mark things down as quickly. Guess when the mark to market rule was eliminated? March 2009 "” the bottom of the market.
D) We've had eight straight quarters of GDP growth. Well, what if next quarter there is no growth? Impossible. Just the return of Japan to some degree of normalcy will guarantee growth.
E) The government is going to cut a lot of jobs. Won't that reduce GDP? Definitely not. Look at 1945. The government eliminated 10 million (!) jobs when the soldiers returned. I don't recall the Great Depression of 1945, do you?
F) Housing starts are down while existing home sales are up 18% year over year. You know what that means? Supply is going down while demand is going up. I look forward to housing prices going up over the next year considerably. Particularly with rents up 30% on the past three years in some parts of the country, like New York City.
G) Look at this. Traffic to fedex.com is my favorite leading indicator. It dipped a little at the market bottom and when Japan reduced manufacturing output by 15%. Now it's coming back. We'll see the result of that in this and next quarter's GDP results. You can run the same chart on ups.com.
That, in a tiny nutshell that I can expand if you want, is the macro view. Let's look at the micro view:
A) No matter what happens in Greece, or even in the United States, /quotes/zigman/68270/quotes/nls/aapl AAPL +0.87% with 12x earnings and $80 billion in cash will release another iPhone, another iPad, another Mac, and then repeat all through next year. They are continuing to change computing and regardless of the state of the economy, the lines will be around the corner when they release the next iPad. Despite all of our worries, consumer spending is up 2% year over year. So AAPL is a buy. And I keep my $1,500 price target on it.
B) Exxon Mobil /quotes/zigman/203975/quotes/nls/xom XOM +0.07% is just beginning a wonderful new phase for the United States and the world. You've heard of peak oil theory "” the idea that the easy oil has all been drilled and we will run out. It's a true theory. BUT, the definition of "easy" is changing because of cheaper and cheaper advances in the technology of fracking. XOM bought XTO, the leader in fracking, which can drill 3,000 feet down through solid rock, drill sideways, break up previously hard rocks, and get the oil up. Cheaper than ever. And it will only get cheaper. The U.S. is the new Saudi Arabia over the next 10 years. And XOM is dirt cheap.
Gold futures have worst day in five years
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures on Friday notched their biggest one-day percentage drop in five...
Is stock market replaying decade of the 1930s?
Some in the investment arena have been drawing analogies to the 1930s for several years now, but especially...
The six safest stocks around
In a market like this, you need to find the safest, best-yielding stocks you can, writes Brett Arends.
Sovereign-debt "?spiral' seen imperiling Europe
H-P kicks off Whitman era with share drop
Radio Update: Gold falls more than $100
Silver drops 18%, worst in decades; platinum sinks
Europe's Week Ahead: H&M And Eurozone In Focus
Gold futures have worst day in five years
U.S. stocks up again in volatile trading
Dish, Blockbuster team up with online streaming
Sovereign-debt "?spiral' seen imperiling Europe
Big-bank settlement talks "?encouraging': HUD
Silver futures log biggest daily percent drop ever
Dec. silver down $6.48, or 17.7%, to end at $30.10
BREAKING
Gold settles 5.9% lower at $1,639.80 an ounce
Investors jump into airlines
S&P reiterates buy rating on Nike
NY Fed Dudley calls for more data on foreign banks
Dollar near highest since January to end week
The sprint behind Nike and athletic stocks
NBA cancels preseason games, calls off training
NASA mission sounds now available as ringtones
Losses mount as gold nears settlement
Fund redemptions topped $16 billion ahead of rout
Economy
Commentary
Read Full Article »