Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Weird’s Deep Thoughts (Tuesday Edition): Is the bear around the corner?





As Henny Youngman might say if he were a financial comedian: Bear with me.  According to Marketwatch’s Jon Markman opinions will differ, but it certainly looks as if institutional investors are hunkering down for a bear market and recession. They may be wrong or they may be right, but that's what their actions say.

How else to interpret the reaction last week to the news that the entire U.S. economy, spanning 300 million talented and vivacious people, managed to add only 69,000 jobs in May? Not only was that less than half the forecast, but even if it had met expectations, an addition of 140,000 jobs still would have been considered incredibly anemic. The country needs at least 250,000 new jobs produced a month to keep up with the supply of new job seekers.

The weakened outlook makes the most important event on this week's U.S. economic calendar the appearance of Fed Chair Ben Bernanke before Congress on Thursday. He'll deliver the central bank's economic outlook in a speech that will be scrutinized for any hint that a third round of quantitative easing will be on the table at the organization's June meeting.  Many experts seem to think there's no question that, at minimum, he'll wink to hint at further easing,…

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