I had a better shot at winning Powerball than being long Venezuela and short Greece this year. If you were, I bow at your altar. Those that make long term forecasts are paid to take up our time, those that listen, deserve what they get. Bulge bracket firms need to justify their existence. When they aren’t firing thousands of people or defending themselves to the SEC or the Senate, they make long term macro calls at the beginning of the year. The analyst community gets giddy when they do it and Barrons always puts it on the front page. It’s that special time of year when all the charlatans in their ivory towers get recognition for completely sucking at what they do for a living. This year they mostly changed those calls around August because they were so completely wrong, in fact not even close.
These reports are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. They come in beautiful PDF form with pretty colors and pie charts, or you can get a lovely bound edition. Hedge funds and advisors love to put the bound ones on their waiting room coffee tables, it makes them look smart, current and so well read. At least until the time comes, like mid year, when they change everything again because their calls were so bad.
We are about thirteen days away form the 2012 kickoff. I cant wait to see what these balance sheet bozos have in store for us this time.
The chart below is form the boys at Bespoke.
