7d31e8de9397

A couple of weeks ago I was out shopping for a car. I wanted to find a cheap, decent used car that would take me to the office and back. Boy was I frustrated as I went from dealer to dealer without result, there was nothing within my budget ($5000); and you should know that where I live, there is a car salesman every hundred feet. This made me more attentive to the other cars on the road. The more I observed, the more amazed I was; most Americans drive an almost brand new car. How is that possible? ...

Last week certainly was in favor of the bears. Soft economic reports, profit warnings around the globe and Friday GE missed guidance. Most markets saw a substantial selloff, even though OMX recovered some of the losses the last hour of trading. As my view is very bearish for the near future, I have been shopping around for positive data points, potential surprises on the upside, or at least something that shows that it is not as bad as it seems. Most of the points I present concern the American economy, but with a diminishing decoupling story we are all on our toes for what happens in the US. If you don’t believe me, look at Friday’s OMX graph around 12:30 when GE came to the altar. ...