Everyone does it – speaking too soon, calling the top too early, predicting a bubble or crisis where none exists, etc. Josh Brown is the latest.
Let’s see…on the very week he wrote this blog post, Air B&B secured a funding at a mind-blowing $10 billion valuation. So I guess the bursting of the rich people bubble will have to be put on hold until this type of activity stops (which we predict it won’t).
Same for the Ukraine situation. We’re seeing this front-running of crisis by the left and right because a lot of people are tired of the status-quo and want a renegade like Putin to break the monotony. For the left it’s so that Russia enters a recession and the global economy is disrupted like it was in 1998; for the right it’s so that Obama looks more incompetent than he already is and they can say “we told you so”. We predict to the disappointment of pundits everywhere, nothing further will happen. Stocks will keep going up and oil prices will surge on even the smallest of developments. Rising oil prices is evidence Obama’s sanctions are backfiring, as we predicted would happen a few month ago. But a distinction must be made in that this is an energy problem, not a military one. If oil does go to $150 on energy supply disruption, it will be very bad news for the democrats.