Could the uber-bear, Albert Edwards, possibly become more bearish?
Yep! From his global strategy weekly, sent out to SocGen clients:
Even as structural bears on equities over the last decade, we have never felt the confidence to lower equities to a minimum possible exposure of 30%. That ends today. This is the first time in over a decade that we have felt so very strongly that we make this recommendation. Conversely, as the world frets about inflation we raise our government bond weighting to its maximum 50%. We are not through the worst of this crisis. The worst is still to come.
This truly is the stuff of sandwich boards and loud hailers - a message that the end is nigh, delivered with sparkling prose.
Mr Edwards knows that his doggedly bearish stance has invited much derision and ridicule, but he notes that equities have underperformed 10 year government bonds over the last decade - “And that is even before the current equity bear market.”
Some nuggets:
- We are trying to give our readers the strongest possible warning (ever!) that we are on the cusp of an equity meltdown that will slash and shred portfolios like Freddie Krueger.
- We see a global recession unfolding. Nowhere and nothing will be immune.
- One of the clearest impressions that I will take away from working in this industry is how darned bullish everyone wants to be. To be sure, nobody likes to be a party-pooper but the bias towards optimism in this industry is truly staggering…I have found recent hope that
