Just a Short Note...

Note - from June 24th 2009, this blog has migrated from Blogger to a self-hosted version. Click here to go straight there.

It's always fun - now that the year is done and dusted - to recap a little.

Many of you will know that I've been bearish on US stocks for some time - although a perusal of the SquawkBox forum on CNBC will show that I posted the turning point of the March 2002 low literally ten minutes before it happened.... beginner's luck (I would like to provide a link, but I've been banned from there for saying yucky things abot George the War-Criminal Shrub and his AIPAC'JINSA-sponsored corrupt cabal).

Still and all, I'm not a mindless "permabear" - often the long-side opportunities stick out like the proverbial bulldog's dangly-bits.

I thought at this stage it was worth recapping where and when the "1220 by year end" call happened, 'cos a couple of folks kept e-mailing me and couldn't find the original quote.

It was actually in a Comment in response to JimHaz1, on November 5th. The S&P had closed at 1161 and change, having torn through resistance just above 1140 the previous session.

Here's the extract (note: the "marketing talking point" is the partial privatisation of Social Security)...

In the very short term, that marketing talking point will attract dumb money - that's what it's designed for: it will enable insider and "informed money" selling. I think that the dumb money is moving now - and there's every chance that - since the S&P has gone past 1140 - that it will get as far as 1220... that's half the reason I am short BONDS.

So there you have it: that's where my long bias to year-end started (although it always makes me very very nervous to be long US equities with leverage) - and there were some wiggles between.

I admit that as time wore on, even 1220 looked maybe a little low, and I started thinking 1225 was more likely, especially given the now-widespread "tape painting" that happens so that the parasites in the funds-mismanagement industry can post portfolios to clients that look like they contain stuff that went up.

The futures high on the last trading day of the year (which was also the high for the year) was... (drum roll please...) 1219.75... I should not have uprated the 1220 target to 1225, simple as that.

2005 is going to be an absolute doozy. There's a sliver of a chance that the Dow will reach a new all time high before a fresh plummet, but the overall outlook places about a 65% chance that the market (as measured by the S&P) will end the year down over 25%. The first few days of January are a good time to take leveraged long-side bets.

It will also be an exciting time at Casa del Ranto -

• the provision of even more stuff to theFinancials.com;
• the rollout of RantPro;
• the expansion of RegionalRants to include

• NZ

  Japan

  Canada

  Euroland (finally)

• more in-depth coverage of

• bonds

  metals

  energy and

  currencies

And probably a requirement to split each post-US-market rant into separate bits (otherwise the expanded "other stuff" will turn each day into a book an will expand download times unacceptably).

Stay toooned...