The Delphic Future

And yet again, no one knows.

In surveying the weekend press/blogosphere I find myself puzzled at the wide range of opinions. If opinions were placed on a Bell curve, the aforementioned Bell curve would look like a flat line. The distribution seems completely random. At one end you have an article in "Barron's" (usually bearish) that predicts DOW:20,000 on the basis that the FED is setting the stage for the next boom and that everything has been oversold, especially the financial sector. At the other end you find commentary that the current crisis is just the "tip of the iceberg" and that the US economy is really the Titanic and we are just dancing on the deck for now. Evidence is that 1/ the mortgage crisis just getting started and a lot of mortgages will reset this year 2/ that cancer has metastasized and invaded the rest of the financial system, stage 3 style, too late to operate 3/ the doctor FED is increasingly desperate.

On the front page of the FT weekend we have "Mortgage rescue talks under way", describing that the FED is engaged in talks to buy the stricken mortgage securities (as I mused in a previous entry as the most effective solution) only to be followed today by an official DENIAL by the FED that it is NOT, repeat NOT, engaged in such activity. I got to say that such high level rumor mongering made me chuckle.

No one knows, but we can measure that as well: it is called volatility.