Michael Shaoul, chief executive at brokerage firm Oscar Gruss, punched up this note to clients that we thought worth passing along:
We have always argued that the scariest two words for an investor as “soft landing”. The phrase “This Time It’s Different” is often cited in the same way but this normally coincides with the climax of a bull market while money is still being made and is used to explain why pure greed should be considered prudent investment. “Soft Landing” on the other hand generally gets rolled out after asset price performance has started to decline in the most popular investment arena for a cycle, and peaks just as data makes its first lurch lower. As can be seen within months it is knocked off the charts by the use of the term “recession” (and in 2008 the term depression) as conditions worsen far more than most expected.
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