A couple of bullish calls noted in the FT. First you probably heard Bill Miller, the manager of the Legg Mason Value Trust Fund (LMTVX) thinks a bottom is in.
You probably also heard him get derided in a couple of places for already calling a bottom in the spring and for being down almost 60%.
One thing is certain the real bottom will be met with much disbelief and then some hindsight bias will no doubt point to some obvious things that most people will not see in real time.
Also in the FT is a call from UBS that the S&P 500 will close 2009 at 1300. That is an interesting number. In mid November I had a quick post about some sort of massive snap back met by another run down in the end and the number I tossed out was 1300. While 1300 was not really a prediction a logical point is that if you look back in market history there have been massive moves up, 30, 40, 50% during very bad times. To say one of those is coming when the selling really ends (even if the fundamentals are forever broken and the country is financially ruined–which is not what I think) is far from a bold prediction. Of course whether it would fit neatly into a calendar year is the wrong focus.
The Harvard Endowment is making news for a swift drop in a very short period of time. I’ve been writing about the way endowment fund invest for quite a while. There is a fascination with these funds (I too am fascinated) but I think a line needs to be drawn between learning from them and trying to emulate them. The first post I can find on not emulating them is a post I wrote in October 2007. The guys running these funds are smarter than we are but no one is 100% correct all of the time.
Lastly a couple of more new ETFs from ProShares;
Double Long Gold (UGL)
Double Short Gold (GLL)
Double Long Silver (AGQ)
Double Short Silver (ZSL)
