This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Michael Lerner and Ethan Hill (GOOD.is): The new Nostradamus, October 1, 2009. Can a fringe branch of mathematics forecast the future? A special adviser to the CIA, Fortune 500 companies, and the US Department of Defense certainly thinks so.

• Paul Lim (The New York Times): 10 years later, a much less expensive Dow 10,000, November 14, 2009. Investors may take some comfort now that the Dow Jones industrial average is back above 10,000 after slipping to around 9,700 at the end of October. But the return to 10,000 also serves as a bitter reminder that stocks have gone virtually nowhere, on balance, for more than a decade. Look a bit

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Rumors of the death of the credit crisis are greatly exaggerated, October 26, 2009. In recent months, I’ve strongly rejected the notion that the credit crisis has been conveniently placed behind us and that the U.S. is now in a typical post-war economic recovery (and can be approached as such from an investment perspective). This view continues to strike me as dangerous and even naïve.

• Dave Nadig (IndexUniverse.com): Nouriel Roubini - big crash coming, October 23, 2009. Roubini will be the keynote speaker at IndexUniverse’s upcoming “Inside Commodities” conference on November 4 at the New York Stock Exchange. IndexUniverse sat down with Dr. Roubini ahead of the conference to take his temperature

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Michael Santoli (Barron’s): Five modern myths, October 19, 2009. For some of us, it’s always a Mark Twain moment. The current juncture in the markets seems a particularly appropriate time to invoke the American Aristotle’s observation that, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” This article provides a selection of items that most investors and market observers seem to “know for sure” - and that just may not be so.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): The stock market has never been this (intermediate-term) overbought, October 18, 2009. We can no longer find a single historical instance where stocks were more overbought

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Andy Xie (Caijing.com.cn): Why one bubble burst deserves another, September 28, 2009. The financial crisis taught crucial lessons about the dangers of bubbles, loose regulation and debt. It’s a pity we didn’t learn.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Zen lessons in market analysis, October 11, 2009. The best way of preparing for the future is to take good care of the present, because we know that if the present is made up of the past, then the future will be made up of the present.

• John Authers (Financial Times): Manufactured surprises will keep stocks rolling, October 10, 2009. A stronger recovery would help earnings but would also bring the risk of higher interest rates to

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Robert Fisk (Independent): Secret plan to ditch the US dollar’s dominance uncovered, October 6, 2009. Arab states have launched a secret plan with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): China calls time on dollar hegemony, October 6, 2009. You can date the end of dollar hegemony from China’s decision last month to sell its first batch of sovereign bonds in Chinese yuan to foreigners.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Defensive, but a measure of equanimity, October 5, 2009. My view continues to be that the intrinsic condition of the US economy has not improved, and that the green shoots we’ve observed are a transient artifact

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): We’re speaking Japanese without knowing it, September 28, 2009. After the bubble burst in Japan in 1990, Japanese banks were not compelled to properly disclose their losses either. The predictable result is that the problems resurfaced later, but worse, because they had not been addressed.

• John Authers (Financial Times): A risky revival, September 25, 2009. The speed of the rally is itself cause for concern. Historically, big sell-offs have typically been followed by big bounces. But as measured by the S&P 500, the current rally is stronger after six months than any predecessor, including those that followed the lowest points of the market in 1932, 1974 and 1982.

• Tom Petruno (Los Angeles

The FDIC is considering tapping its emergency line of credit with the Treasury. FDIC Chair Sheila Bair recently hinted after a speech at Georgetown University that all options are on the table when it comes time to replenish the dwindling Deposit Insurance Fund. We’ll find out more in the next few weeks after the FDIC board of directors meets.

Stock market bulls aren’t concerned about the inevitable acceleration in bank failures — at least for now. Even though deposits will be insured against loss, the loss of local banks will still have a depressing effect on hundreds of small communities. These communities are going to lose their only access to business credit when their local zombie banks — loaded with toxic construction or commercial real estate loans — are liquidated or merged into other weak banks.

Meanwhile, the latest monthly figures show that commercial bank balance sheets are shrinking at a fairly

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Richard Beales (The New York Times): Exuberance defies sober new reality, September 17, 2009. Is irrational exuberance back in the markets? Evidence abounds that it may be. With financial chaos abating, the return of risk appetite in stock and lending markets is logical - up to a point. But risk-taking that aspires to the boom-time norm, rather than a more sober new reality, could be premature and dangerous.

• James Grant (The Wall Street Journal): From bear to bull, September 19, 2009. Grant argues the latest gloomy forecasts ignore an important lesson of history: The deeper the slump, the zippier the recovery.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Strenuously overbought, September 22, 2009. Our measures of market action

This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find interesting.

• John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Conditional expectations and September seasonality, September 14, 2009. One of the arguments we’ve seen a lot lately is the idea that September and October have historically been the worst months for the stock market, coupled with rebuttals by bullish analysts along the lines that the discussion of this historical tendency by the bears makes it likely that nothing bad will happen this time. The fact is that yes, on average, the combined September-October period has historically produced slight declines for the S&P 500 whether you look back since 1870, 1900, 1940 or 1970. But the variance around that slightly negative return is large enough that it’s really misguided, in my view, to base predictions on it.

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This post provides links to a number of thought-provoking articles I have read over the past few days that you may also find interesting.

•John Hussman (Hussman Funds): Showtime for visible roots and fruit, September 8, 2009. In my view, the next 12-16 weeks will be extremely important in shedding light on any incipient economic recovery. Investors have become so used to the idea that stocks often foreshadow economic strength that actual, convincing evidence has been dispensable - beyond the excitement over “less bad” economic news. The next 12-16 weeks will change that.

• Alan Blinder (The New York Times): The wait for financial reform, September 5, 2009. Back during the Obama transition, the newly designated chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, enunciated what I’ll call the Emanuel Principle: “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste,” he said. “It’s an