A year ago I recommended investors adopt a defensive posture in regards to the stock market. Stocks were able to move higher, before chopping sideways and then selling off in this current period of volatility. Significant price swings have become commonplace and stocks have so far in 2015 delivered negative returns. My recommendation to underweight stocks was not based on predicting an imminent bear market. Instead, it was a declaration that the risks versus rewards of owning stocks were too negative to justify even a neutral weighting, and the potential for a bear market too high. For a long time, I had been writing about the risks to this current bull market, but that was the first time I recommended the more conservative, defensive posture that I continue to advocate. The reasons for that call are worth revisiting, particularly my worries about China, as they now seem especially pertinent.
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Things Fall Apart
ICangles Investment Post…
It is increasingly clear that the arrangements at the center of the world’s monetary system are fraying. On Monday Standard & Poor’s cut its outlook on the credit rating of the United States to negative indicating there is a very real possibility for a downgrade. By Tuesday gold prices topped $1,500 an ounce. Also last Friday China admitted inflation was picking-up steam, as it announced an official annual uptick of 5.4 percent that almost surely understates the true amount. On the European front Moody’s downgraded Ireland’s credit rating last Friday. That action followed earlier comments from Germany’s finance minister that Greece may default on its debts. All of this came despite the world being in the midst of an economic recovery.
Investment & Communication Angles 