MEREDITH WHITNEY: OUR PROBLEMS ARE GETTING WORSE
8 December 2009 by Cullen Roche
8 Comments
Good thoughts here from Meredith Whitney. She appears to be getting even more pessimistic about the situation in the banking sector. She somehow claims to have been bullish “since the beginning of 2009″, but I can only remember one buy call this entire year – her Goldman buy call around mid-year. Nonetheless, her comments are always worth a listen:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Source: CNBC
To be fair, at the 1:23 mark of the first video, she actually says that “on a fundamental basis, [she] has been bearish all year.”
Come on Vik. She says at the 1:30 mark that she has been “trading bullish” all year, which implies that she has been bullish throughout the rally. But a review of her stance shows that she had no buy recommendations on financial stocks all year and only stuck a buy on Goldman in the summer. The implication that she has been bullish throughout the rally is utter nonsense. Whitney is a great bank analyst. A great bank analyst. But like most analysts, that doesn’t mean a damn thing with regards to her trading.
Meredith is a one hit wonder. She happened to be bearish at the right time and made a few lucky calls. Beyond that, she has been entirely wrong for the entire bull move.
Well, she called the bottom in March, and recommended going long and covering shorts. She understands herd momentum, but, being a fundamentalist at heart, she started being bearish when the market started getting bubbly.
I find her honesty refreshing.
Bull@#$%. She was interviewed in April and was very bearish on banks. She didn’t really get bullish even as a trade until July after most banks had already doubled.
Funny how the analysts all came out with sell ratings on the banks just before the bottom and practically none had buy ratings until after half the rally was finished. That is normal business on Wall Street. What a joke.
Don’t know TPC but having been a broker for 20 years and studied economics, he/she seems to be right on. I have always been optomistic but everyone I talk to seems to think this whole thing is a game now…Can’t fight the trend but at some point the market will have to face the reality….like Tiger Woods…..felt good at the time but the price to be paid will eventually be steep. I feel sorry for those that did not cause this and those that are blind to what is going on
Love this woman! She’s brilliant, a real geek, and can’t speak worth sh*t. She has thousands of datapoints swimming around in her head, and she cannot spit out / articulate TV soundbites. A real geek – despite her looks.
Why judge her in terms of stock market predictions. All that nonsense is one big lie. The stock market will do what it’ll do regardless of fundamentals, which is why it’s so stupid to try and make sense of those two things as if they are one and the same. Countless examples. Analysts like Meredith shouldn’t even fall into the trap of making stock market predictions. Be like Buffett and Munger.
I appreciate hearing about fundamentals from serious people like Whitney. Leave those idiotic price targets for buffoons like Cramer. Just because the market goes up when someone like Whitney is bearish, or vice-versa, is no reason to find fault with their analysis. Both can be true.
What a crazy world. Everyone wants to know the unknowable, i.e. what the stock market will do. Why not ask them “what day will I die on?”. Just as silly.
These serious people are correct. Papering over the deep-rooted problems with trillions of dollars and all sorts of other govt intervention has not fundamentally changed much. Things are horrible out there. Period. The stock market is NOT the economy. And you cannot get the masses to return to their spending ways of the great bull market merely by pumping up the stock market with vast liquidity. Confidence and trust has been lost (as well it should be). A crisis of faith. Contrary to what I read far too often, people are NOT stupid. They know they’ve been scammed, lied, and cheated to for a long time now by those in power. Eventually, that takes it’s toll.
Good luck. Aside from a few small positions in arb plays, and some option selling, I’m 100% cash. I’d rather make ZERO on my money than be involved in a totally rigged and corrupt market, where the govt can intervene any time it wants to, and artificially create many winners and losers. Hopefully one day things will change. Until then, survival is the key.
I couldn’t agree more. But like Joe said, his opinion changes if she starts making broad market calls. She should stick to what she is good at and that is analyzing banks – not making market calls.