unemployment drops to 7.8%

[nando]

uhm, is an economy that is 101.5% the size it was in an earlier period not larger? or are you saying 101.5 is smaller than 100?

how about math 97. Man.

[joshh]

so you deny that obama paid no attention to the economy in his first two years? years when he had a filibuster proof senate and a majority in the house, could have passed any law/program he wanted? you're saying this did not happen?

and josh, don't you know that an economy that is decelerating from over 3% GDP to less than 1.5% GDP is growing? Sheesh. econ 101 man.

I know but growth is growth right. But "The private sector is doing fine..."

And some people here want to think they aren't partisan...lol.

[rwh11385]

so you deny that obama paid no attention to the economy in his first two years? years when he had a filibuster proof senate and a majority in the house, could have passed any law/program he wanted? you're saying this did not happen?

and josh, don't you know that an economy that is decelerating from over 3% GDP to less than 1.5% GDP is growing? Sheesh. econ 101 man.

So wait, in your fantasy land are you ignoring that he signed ARRA?

Maybe you should learn some calculus, and realize that a negative rate of change of growth can still have positive growth rate.

If the GDP change was -5% and changed to -2.5% does that mean that the economy grew? No. Anyone who understands basic math knows that it still is shrinking if at -2.5% versus -5%, although the rate is decreased.

Moving from 3% to 2% decreased the rate of growth but is still growing. Like if you have a 2% acceleration versus 3% acceleration in a car you are still speeding up not slowing down although the rate of which you are accelerating is decreased.

uhm, is an economy that is 101.5% the size it was in an earlier period not larger? or are you saying 101.5 is smaller than 100?

how about math 97. Man.

Like Frog said, math has a liberal bias because it questions right wing nut job logic.


More importantly gwb, what would you have had the President do to fix the economy?

[gwb72tii]

seems like my reference to john hussman is not credible with our local economist rwh
he's one of about 15 economists we track and pay attention to. hussman and the ECRI, who also believes the USA to be currently in recession, have historically be right, much more than most, so take it for what its worth.
rwh (and his little sister brave) apparently know little, or don't care to know, about risk adjusted returns.
but whatever, rwh and his sidekick (you too nando?) have closed minds because i mentioned them here, and because i posted them rwh will start to whine again and argue some other point of view.
for anyone else, it pays to pay attention to people smarter than yourself (rwh is the smartest, he'll tell you so if you post here).

here is the latest from hussman and someone's endorsement of his record.
hrere's two quotes from his recent weekly market commentary;

"However, last week, the stock market experienced some significant damage to internals (breadth, leadership, price/volume measures, etc). As a result, our estimates of prospective return/risk have plunged lower again, to what is now the second most negative figure we’ve observed in a century of data – the September 14, 2012 weekly close of 1465.77 continues to mark the most negative estimate."

"The S&P 500 has now underperformed Treasury bills for nearly 14 years, including dividends. The cycle since 2007 has been extraordinary in its economic, monetary and fiscal characteristics, not to mention the need to contemplate Depression-era data along the way. It’s undoubtedly easier to dismiss my present concerns as the rantings of a permabear than to understand the narrative of this particular market cycle. But for the benefit of those who do, I want to share my view that the statistical risk of severe market outcomes, given present observable data, has almost never been worse."

http://hussman.com/wmc/wmc121112.htm

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-27/wall_street/31102998_1_purple-line-blue-line-fund

disclaimer: i am not giving anybody reading this advice to do anything. its up to you and your advisor if you use one. and hussman can certainly be wrong

let the whining begin

[rwh11385]

seems like my reference to john hussman is not credible with our local economist rwh
he's one of about 15 economists we track and pay attention to. hussman and the ECRI, who also believes the USA to be currently in recession, have historically be right, much more than most, so take it for what its worth.
rwh (and his little sister brave) apparently know little, or don't care to know, about risk adjusted returns.
but whatever, rwh and his sidekick (you too nando?) have closed minds because i mentioned them here, and because i posted them rwh will start to whine again and argue some other point of view.
for anyone else, it pays to pay attention to people smarter than yourself (rwh is the smartest, he'll tell you so if you post here).

here is the latest from hussman and someone's endorsement of his record.
hrere's two quotes from his recent weekly market commentary;

"However, last week, the stock market experienced some significant damage to internals (breadth, leadership, price/volume measures, etc). As a result, our estimates of prospective return/risk have plunged lower again, to what is now the second most negative figure we’ve observed in a century of data – the September 14, 2012 weekly close of 1465.77 continues to mark the most negative estimate."

"The S&P 500 has now underperformed Treasury bills for nearly 14 years, including dividends. The cycle since 2007 has been extraordinary in its economic, monetary and fiscal characteristics, not to mention the need to contemplate Depression-era data along the way. It’s undoubtedly easier to dismiss my present concerns as the rantings of a permabear than to understand the narrative of this particular market cycle. But for the benefit of those who do, I want to share my view that the statistical risk of severe market outcomes, given present observable data, has almost never been worse."

http://hussman.com/wmc/wmc121112.htm

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-27/wall_street/31102998_1_purple-line-blue-line-fund

disclaimer: i am not giving anybody reading this advice to do anything. its up to you and your advisor if you use one. and hussman can certainly be wrong

let the whining begin

So you're just going to attack everyone who disagrees with you or Hussman? Primarily utilizing Guilt by association fallacy. You know, instead of responding to previous challenges of your poor logic.

[gwb72tii]

i'm only poking at you rwh, and the guy/girl that peaks out from behind you, "brave"
the post isn't for you, but i knew you'd say the same old tired bullshit

[rwh11385]

You never answered why you thought a logit regression was a valid indicator of the future economy.

You still have never responded to this. And yet now Hussman has - and explains himself why it is not that great of value:

http://hussman.com/wmc/wmc121112.htm

There is no need to present the case as any better or worse than it is, but the simple fact is that our return/risk estimates for stocks dropped into the most negative 1% of historical data way back in March of this year, and the estimates we’ve seen since September have been even more extreme.

The S&P 500 has now underperformed Treasury bills for nearly 14 years, including dividends. The cycle since 2007 has been extraordinary in its economic, monetary and fiscal characteristics, not to mention the need to contemplate Depression-era data along the way. It’s undoubtedly easier to dismiss my present concerns as the rantings of a permabear than to understand the narrative of this particular market cycle. But for the benefit of those who do, I want to share my view that the statistical risk of severe market outcomes, given present observable data, has almost never been worse.

That’s not to say that we should necessarily expect market losses matching profound declines such as 2008-2009, 2000-2002, 1973-1974 and so on. There is a difference between the component of market returns that can be considered “predictable” ex-ante (before the fact), and actual market returns, which contain both that “predictable” component and a much larger random component. So to say that the “expected” return is among the most negative in history is a statement about the smaller predictable component, and it doesn’t follow that the full ex-post return will also be among the most negative in history – though we can’t really rule it out.

Given those statements, I wonder if he has provided any statistical background on why his analysis method provides any good predictive abilities. Although he finally clearly states that just because his logit regression is in the worse X% of data does not mean that the results will be in the worse X%, he certainly has tried to make it seem that way in past publications. And you clearly have repeated it in a misleading fashion in ignorance of that concession.

gwb, do you have any insight on why you think that a logit regression is a valid indicator of future performance?

[rwh11385]

i'm only poking at you rwh, and the guy/girl that peaks out from behind you, "brave"
the post isn't for you, but i knew you'd say the same old tired bullshit

Brave, nando, and I. Why is that? Because we don't buy into what ECRI says? Why possibly could that be? Maybe Achuthan doesn't even follow his own metric when re-affirming his recession calls... which completely destroys his credibility.

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/ECRI-Weekly-Leading-Index.php

Despite the latest dip in the indicators that ECRI shares with the public, they do not support the company's repeated recession forecasts, which subsequently evolved into an assertion that we are already in a recession. Improvements in Consumer Sentiment and the Advance Estimate of Q3 GDP likewise contradict ECRI's recession call made over 13 months ago.

And to appease Hussman's concern:

It is not impossible that the NBER may determine, based on future downward revisions to data, that a recession began at some point in 2012, but the performance of the Big Four does not currently support that expectation.

Things can be revised, but to completely ignore your own metric to carry your previous call because of an ego the size of Achuthan makes him lose credibility.

[gwb72tii]

and here, i'll expand on what quants do, like hussman
quants parse data, and try to determine historically what sets of economic data were present at both market advances and market declines. the data include current data like unemployment/leading economic indicators, consumer spending, shiller p/e, market internals etc etc.
and then they can, with perfect hindsight, see which combination of leading/current/lagging economic indicators were common to advances and declines thru history, and then refine the data sets to those that have been the most common.
infallible? no, never.
it just tells you where you are today compared to past events in the market's history. that's it.
there are many quants that use data sets to determine investment choices. hussman is one.
we use him, in part, as a source of opinion. one of many.
FWIW

[gwb72tii]

yes, rwh, you're smarter than both the entire ECRI team and hussman. you've told me so.
and for one that asked for a bond fund that outperformed the S&P, and then cried foul because i picked a 5 year time frame, its funny you try to discredit ECRI and others base on your own time frame.
you like running in circles don't you. oops, redundant question, you're an economist.

keep those cherry picked charts coming rwh

if i close my eyes i can just see you madly typing into a google search with steam coming out your ears. LOL

[rwh11385]

and here, i'll expand on what quants do, like hussman
quants parse data, and try to determine historically what sets of economic data were present at both market advances and market declines. the data include current data like unemployment/leading economic indicators, consumer spending, shiller p/e, market internals etc etc.
and then they can, with perfect hindsight, see which combination of leading/current/lagging economic indicators were common to advances and declines thru history, and then refine the data sets to those that have been the most common.
infallible? no, never.
it just tells you where you are today compared to past events in the market's history. that's it.
there are many quants that use data sets to determine investment choices. hussman is one.
we use him, in part, as a source of opinion. one of many.
FWIW

Yes. That a simplified understanding of it - but funny you are trying to talk down to my like a child. I'm asking if Hussman ever provides information on how valid his analysis is - and why.

I know you worship Hussman because he's a Stanford PhD, but so was my quant economics professor - and he taught us that you could use data to show that more police result in more crimes reported, even if that's not really a valid conclusion.

The question was never what Hussman does - but why you see it as a valid analysis.

yes, rwh, you're smarter than both the entire ECRI team and hussman. you've told me so.
and for one that asked for a bond fund that outperformed the S&P, and then cried foul because i picked a 5 year time frame, its funny you try to discredit ECRI and others base on your own time frame.
you like running in circles don't you. oops, redundant question, you're an economist.

keep those cherry picked charts coming rwh

Hmmm, attacking economists while worshiping another that suits your conclusion. I never said I'm smarter than them - they obviously are good at extracting profits from gullible listeners, but I do know what is reasonable logic and what is just bullshit. Your confirmation bias does not allow you to see through it. Madoff was smart too, wasn't he? But that doesn't mean he wasn't full of shit.

How is that cherry picked? What data would you prefer? Oh wait, you also think that all data is worthless because it doesn't suit your claims. But let's use ECRI's own data:

if i close my eyes i can just see you madly typing into a google search with steam coming out your ears. LOL

Lol, keep up your fantasies as you wish. You live in a world defined by what you want to believe instead of facts anyway.

[gwb72tii]

not that it doesn't support my claims rwh
as i've said before, i don't care to parse the data, i rely on others do do that and provide insight and opinion. both the ECRI and hussman have proven themselves over the years to be more right than wrong, consistently. that's why we use them.
and as you admitted before, current economic data is heavily revised so we really don't know where we are

[rwh11385]

not that it doesn't support my claims rwh
as i've said before, i don't care to parse the data, i rely on others do do that and provide insight and opinion. both the ECRI and hussman have proven themselves over the years to be more right than wrong, consistently. that's why we use them.
and as you admitted before, current economic data is heavily revised so we really don't know where we are

What? What are you talking about? Did you miss where he explains that "is a statement about the smaller predictable component, and it doesn’t follow that the full ex-post return will also be among the most negative in history". Your claims overpromise without support of data, like your Q1 2012 being in a recession call.

There's a difference between analyzing the data yourself and finding the explanation of why someone's you are using is valid. Someone has found that the Redskins winning or losing was correlated with the Presidential outcome, but does that make it a valid indicator or predictor?

You don't care where we are? Yet what are their models based on? And you don't care that ECRI's calls are in conflict with their OWN data and metric?

[gwb72tii]

dude, calm down
you admitted in an earlier post that current economic data is unreliable
i my mind THAT means current GDP numbers are meaningless, THAT YOU CANNOT RELY ON THEM
capiche?

[rwh11385]

dude, calm down
you admitted in an earlier post that current economic data is unreliable
i my mind THAT means current GDP numbers are meaningless, THAT YOU CANNOT RELY ON THEM
capiche?

Yet a few months ago, you hounded on ISM and GDP data points as they were hot off the presses... yet now you want to consider them unreliable - only as they are not in your favor.

In your mind, anything that is negative is true and anything that is positive is bullshit, a conspiracy, or unreliable.