Thinking about themes for 2015 brings to mind Shakepeare’s Henry VI, specifically when Clifford speaks to the king: My gracious liege, this too much lenity And harmful pity must be laid aside. To whom do lions cast their gentle looks? Not to the beast that would usurp their den. Whose hand is that the forest

By definition, something that we can “see coming” is not a black swan event. Like Russia. I realize that “past performance does not necessarily predict future results”, but in my experience, past downside performance is a strong indicator of future downside performance. Yes, stocks are rallying now. We’re in the phase right after the initial

For your eyes only. Please do not circulate. [google-drive-embed url=”https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0YyZc1ybBX8Tko1UlVoNkwtcE0/edit?usp=drivesdk” title=”BB.20141217-economic-outlook.pdf” icon=”https://ssl.gstatic.com/docs/doclist/images/icon_10_pdf_list.png” style=”normal”] Obviously, the forecasts will not come to pass, but we don’t know which way. As bad as things look now (and it will probably get worse before it gets better), there is one wildcard — the departure of Vladimir Putin. Also, I

Art Cashin is on the record, saying yesterday this is not like 1998 all over again. Really? 2:47AM, this comes across the tape: “We couldn’t imagine what’s happening in our worst nightmare even a year ago,” Shvetsov, who oversees financial markets at Bank of Russia, said yesterday. He said the surprise interest-rate increase in the

Please do not circulate.

What risk really means.

Since I actually read every last piece of outside research before posting it up for you, I asked myself, is there a reason to read publications when the writer is obviously treading water? Am I better off reading a few research papers instead?

To continue on the “it’s so down, it must soon go up” theme, here are David Rosenberg and Weinberg on inflation.