QVM Group

How Low the S&P 500 Could Go

RCSAM:

"Where were you 6 months ago. Negative comments always come out at or near the bottom"

Actually, I have been publishing cautionary articles for a long time. I recommend these to you in particular:

1) [Jan 2007] Is the China Craze a Tech Bubble 2.0?

2) [Jun 2007] title: Extraordinary Investment Risks in Russia; OR [Feb 2008] title: Sell Russia

3) [Aug 2007] title: Better Safe Than Sorry [about money market funds that will break a buck]

4) [Sep 2007] title: REIT Mean Reversion Ahead - The 2006 Party is Over

5) [Mar 2008] title: An Ebbing Tide Lowers All Boats [where I said about the US market "when you stand back and look at longer-term patterns, you definitely see a market that’s rolling over."]

There are several other intervening and subsequent warning articles, but these are good date markers.

I do admit to periods of optimism for financials after those warnings that proved unwarranted, and some suggestions that things will get better that have not yet proved true, but I have been a bear for some time, including being 100% cash personally at the end of January 2008 and 86% cash today.

You are correct that the closer we come to a bottom the more the discussion of disaster becomes. For that reason you may be right that a bottom is near -- I hope so -- but you are not correct in suggesting that I am late to the realization that something was going wrong or late in making my view known.


Richard Shaw