So is wishful thinking:
Like a character out of Shakespeare, Dennis Kneale arrives on the set at a particular time to either highlight or obscure some throat cutting. The fact that here, Merrill Lynch is Fool Dieux means more rather than less throats.
The gist of Kneale’s video – that he gets paid for, by the way – is that Merrill, heard from recently for underwriting secondary stock issues by rapidly disintegrating commercial real estate trusts believes that retail investors should jump from cash into stocks.
Out of the frying pan into another frying pan.
Guys like Kneale aren’t entertaining, they’re dangerous. Some people – maybe five or six – will do just this, invest in Goldman- Sachs pumped stocks at the top of a bear market rally … and lose their shirts.
Interestingly, ML breaks out an analysis of holdings of some of the richest investors in the world – who are maintaining a balance approach to money management by holding a 30% in cash and roughly the same amount in bonds. Kneale and Merrill ridicule this strategy saying that the way to make more and more money is to plunge into stocks.
Hey, Kneale! Those ‘swells’ are rich. Are you? Is Merrill? Who cares anyway?
Rich is like obese, so … yesterday!
As for the recession, it isn’t going anywhere but worse. I’m going to stay away from employment numbers, since they are a ‘Lagging Indicator’, whatever that means and look to the latest Oilwatch Monthly (which is a PDF download.)
According to the IEA figures presented the overall consumption of crude and downstream products has declined overall in the past year by 4 million barrels per day. What this means is the lack of economic activity worldwide has reduced demand for the fuel to transport goods and people.
There is much more plus comments regarding the latest Oilwatch Monthly at The Oil Drum.
One thing to keep in mind is that the price of crude oil is too low to finance out of cash flow necessary infrastructure upgrades. Watch Matt Simmon’s latest presentation and judge for yourself.
At the same time, the price is too high to stimulate robust commercial expansion, according to the New York Times.
At the close of last week’s trading, oil futures fell $2.58, to $66.73 a barrel, after rising above $72 a barrel last month.
These gyrations have rippled across the economy. The automakers General Motors and Chrysler have been forced into bankruptcy as customers shun their gas guzzlers. Airlines are on pace for another year of deep losses because of rising jet fuel costs.
And households, already crimped by falling home prices, mounting job losses and credit pressures, are once more forced to monitor their discretionary spending as energy prices rise.
Until oil prices retreat to $34 a barrel, there is not going to be any recovery. Sorry, Merrill- Lynch.