Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham - Chief Investment Strategist of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo- told CNBC last week:
What I worry about most is the Fed's activity and — QE2 is just the latest demonstration of this. The Fed has spent most of the last 15, 20 years— manipulating the stock market whenever they feel the economy needs a bit of a kick. I think they know very well that what they do has no direct effect on the economy. The only weapon they have is the so-called wealth effect. If you can drive the market up 50 percent, people feel richer.
This is what the Fed wants by the way.
It wants us to go out there and buy stocks, which are overpriced because bonds they have manipulated into being even less attractive. So, we’re being forced to choose between two overpriced assets.
And what the Fed is trying to do is to make cash so ugly that it will force you to take it out and basically speculate. And in that, it's very successful, of course, with the hedge funds. They're out there speculating. Finally, the ordinary individuals are beginning to get so fed up with having no return on their cash that they're beginning to do a little bit more purchasing of equities. And that's what the Fed wants.
It wants to have the stocks go up, to make you feel a bit richer so that you'll spend a little more and give a short-term kick to the economy. But, it— it's a pretty circular argument. For every dollar of wealth effect you get here, as stocks go from overpriced to worse, you will give back in a year or two. And you'll give it back like it— like it happened in— in '08 at the very worse time.
This is what the Fed wants by the way.
It wants us to go out there and buy stocks, which are overpriced because bonds they have manipulated into being even less attractive. So, we’re being forced to choose between two overpriced assets.
And what the Fed is trying to do is to make cash so ugly that it will force you to take it out and basically speculate. And in that, it's very successful, of course, with the hedge funds. They're out there speculating. Finally, the ordinary individuals are beginning to get so fed up with having no return on their cash that they're beginning to do a little bit more purchasing of equities. And that's what the Fed wants.
It wants to have the stocks go up, to make you feel a bit richer so that you'll spend a little more and give a short-term kick to the economy. But, it— it's a pretty circular argument. For every dollar of wealth effect you get here, as stocks go from overpriced to worse, you will give back in a year or two. And you'll give it back like it— like it happened in— in '08 at the very worse time.
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