Hussman Weekly Market Comment: Puppet Show

My concerns here are understandably easy to dismiss given that the S&P 500 is now more than 5% higher than it was in March of last year, when our estimates of prospective return/risk (on a smoothed horizon from 2-weeks to 18 months) first plunged into most negative 1% of market history. Yet despite the intervening monetary heroics, history suggests not that these conditions will persist without resolution, but instead that their resolution is likely to be that much worse. Anyone who followed me in 2000 or 2007 will easily recall a similar frustration before the bottom fell out of the market on each occasion. I can’t assure that the same will occur in the present case, but I believe it would be reckless to assume that the Fed has these risks covered. With margin debt over 2% of GDP as it was on three prior occasions – 2000, 2007 and early 2011 – it’s clear that investors are all-in when it comes to faith in the Fed. Still, when an investment thesis becomes so universally embraced and so apparently easy to follow that anyone who resists is considered foolish (as was the case with tech stocks in 2000), my risk aversion needle hits the red zone.