Merrill's Rosenberg: Goodbye, Thank You, Yes It's Just A Sucker's Rally

David Rosenberg is one of the few analysts working for a major Wall Street firm to have warned investors of the current crisis back in 2007.-Lou


Merrill's Rosenberg: Goodbye, Thank You, Yes It's Just A Sucker's Rally


Merrill's economist David Rosenberg left the firm yesterday (planned for several months). And he went out swinging. David has maintained from the beginning that the recent rocket rally off the lows is just a suckers' rally, and he reiterated that view as he walked through the doors.

Some excerpts from his swan song, which was published Thursday:

Market likely to peak the end of the week [Yesterday]. Just as the clock is winding down on my tenure at Merrill Lynch, the equity market is winding up with an impressive near-40% rally in just nine weeks.

For those that were still long the equity market back at the March 9 lows, a good ‘devil’s advocate’ exercise would be to ask yourself the question whether you would have taken the opportunity, if the offer had been presented, to have sold out your position with a 40% premium at the time. What do you think you would have said back then, as fears of financial Armageddon were setting in? We haven’t conducted a poll, but we are sure at least 90% of the longs at that point would have screamed “hit the bid!”

Are we at risk of missing the turn? Fast forward to today, and within two months optimism seems to have yet again replaced fear. Are we at risk of missing the turn? What if this is the real deal — a new bull market? This is the question that economists, strategists and market analysts must answer.

Risk is much higher now than it was 18 weeks ago. The nine-week S&P 500 surge from 666 at the March lows to 920 as of yesterday has all but retraced the prior nine-week decline from the 2009 peak of 945 on January 6 to the lows on March 9. We believe it is appropriate to put the last nine weeks in the perspective of the previous nine weeks.

To the casual observer, it really looks like nothing at all has happened this year, with the market relatively unchanged. But something very big has happened because the risk in the market, in our view, is much higher than it was the last time we were close to current market prices back in early January, for the simple reason that we believe professional investors have covered their shorts, lifted their hedges and lowered their cash positions in favor of being long the market.


Read More:
http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-merrills-rosenberg-goes-out-swinging-just-a-suckers-rally-2009-5