It was another busy week of earnings announcements. Disappointing earnings announcements.
Even though they're about 5 percent off of their highs, stocks continue to be remarkably resilient.
Meanwhile, markets face tremendous amounts of political uncertainty with elections, a U.S. fiscal cliff, and even a Japanese fiscal cliff fast approaching.
This week we heard from the very best: SocGen's Dylan Grice, Goldman's Huw Pill, JP Morgan's Hajime Kitano, and Morgan Stanley's Gerard Minack just to name a few.
Hedge fund giants Seth Klarman and Hugh Hendry also chimed in.
DYLAN GRICE: Greek Austerity Is Reopening Deep Social Wounds And Could Lead To Civil War
"A harrowing BBC report suggests Greece is Balkanising once more. We are reminded that its civil war only ended in 1949 and that harsh austerity is reopening deep social wounds. Yet Spain'’s civil war ended only a few years earlier, and a generation ago it was a fascist military dictatorship. Couldn'’t it go the same way if subject to the same stress?"
Goldman's Hatzius Explodes One Of The GOP's Biggest Talking Points On The Economy
"We do not doubt that uncertainty shocks depress economic activity, or that uncertainty has risen substantially since 2006. But we do not believe that the economy’s poor performance has been caused by an exogenous increase in US policy uncertainty.
First, the observation that most forecasters have been surprised by the economy’s poor performance probably says more about the forecasters than about the economy. The historical record shows clearly that the bursting of a large asset price and debt bubble inflicts enormous and long-lasting damage on economic activity, and the recent US performance is no worse than that record would suggest.
Second, much of the increase in policy uncertainty is probably a consequence of economic weakness, rather than its cause. Indeed, if we “purge” the uncertainty index of its correlation with past economic activity, it shows a much smaller increase since 2006."
JPM'S HAJIME KITANO: The Conclusion Of The 2008 Financial Crisis Will Be Determined Next Week
"If the VIX index remains at its current level (16.6) next week, furthermore, its 52-week moving average will fall below the July 2011 level to its lowest point since February 2008."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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