Bruce Pile

The Fear Bubble: Treasuries and Gold

The notion of treasuries and gold fading in 2009 makes sense if fear fades. But how can we know fear goes away? In this market, we can't be certain of anything. There is an unprecedented global debt unwind upsetting all the usual guide posts we're used to. The fund company Bernstein reported results of a survey to Barron's (12/15) and moneymorning.com (11/25 ) saying that about 2/3 of fund managers give the deleveraging process only about a 50% completion rate. But they also report that about $40 billion was yanked in that October ordeal and that some $200 billion needs yet to be delevered. Egad! - that's four more Octobers possibly out there lurking.