Fred Voetsch

Laszlo Birinyi: S&P 750's the Bottom - Barron's Interview

This man and his company are not only incompetent but they flat out lie. They provide the data to the Wall Street Journal that states the P/E for the S&P 500 is 14.

They do this because they took a bullish stance in 2008 and have gotten clobbered and they apparently believe they can influence the market through the WSJ.

I have never gotten and answer when I asked them how they come up with this but someone else did and their (Birinyi Associates) answer was a bunch of rubbish about how they base it on what they feel it should be. It was absolutely amazing that such vital financial data that has a history of being determined in a very specific way (share price / reported earnings per share = PE) and that data shows up on The Wall Street Journal's website and Bloomberg TV. NOTE: Bloomberg may come up with their bad data some other way.

If you want to know the TRUE P/E and earnings for the S&P go to Standard & Poor's themselves:

www2.standardandpoors....

2009 Depression Will Be Nothing Like 1929

On Mar 06 09:54 AM Harry Tuttle wrote:
> 4) The Depression was finally ended by WWII. With current technology,
> that outcome is no longer plausible (not that War is ever a desirable
> solution).

Please quit spreading this fallacy. The economy was on the mend in late 1932 and was then hampered by government intereference, especially high taxes. Still, the economy was already improving quite rapidly through most of the 1930's, it's just that the damage was so great that it was going to take a decade or so to restore confidence to the American people and the business community.

2009 Depression Will Be Nothing Like 1929

This is perhaps the most foolish article I have read. In essence it says that "this time it is different".

Fool!

I suggest you take a few hours out of your busy day and research generational patterns, starting over at www.generationaldynami...

Then research The Great Depression and actually read writings from that period instead of what historians have written. You will find that things were very similar to now and that few believed that things could get worse until they actually got worse. You will also find that in fact, the government did a lot to try and stop the rapid decline but as now, was unable to.

Once you build up a huge amount of leverage in a financial system there is only one way to go: deflation. You should also be open to the idea that is may be WORSE this time because we have such a globally linked economy. As they say, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall".

The Market's Breadth Stinks

It would be nice to see a conclusion...what does this mean to the author?

Laszlo Birinyi: S&P 750's the Bottom - Barron's Interview

"The S&P dividend yield @ 6% might be the sign of a tradable bottom."

Yes, it is under 3% now and the P/E ratio is once again over 20. The Dow's is just over 10 but is likely to hit as low as 5 or 6 in a secular bear market and earnings are still falling.

The housing crisis is actually accelerating with alt-a loans yet to have their impact (lookup Meredith Whitney) and the financial problems are far from over (see Nouriel Roubini) and of course the American consumer is tapped out and has finally got religion on paying down their debt, especially since the banks are cutting their credit lines. Oh, and how about the baby boomers retiring and the bad debt our government is taking on that will have to be paid for with taxes?

Yeah...a P/E 50% over the historic AVERAGE and 4x higher than the normal low for a secular bear market just cry out for new highs...BUY, BUY, BUY!!!

--Jim Cramer (just kidding)

--Fred Voetsch