Shrinkologicals: Who Is Really Panicking?

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream

– Wallace Stevens

The “the Fed is panicking” meme is blossoming this AM off yesterday’s open ended QE announcement.

My sense is that those espousing and supporting the meme are, themselves, panicking and projecting such acute anxiety upon the threatening object.

Perhaps the Fed has learned something from the previous rounds of QE & Twist. My personal view is that they were not nearly aggressive or sustained enough to successfully defribrilate the economy.

Theyve either learned something from past errors or are acting politically. I think a little of both.

But I am no expert here.

What I do know is that every time I have expressed an optimistic view this year, I have been pounced by those who know much more about the macro than I do yet have been stubbornly avoiding the one and only objectively observable market reality that has ever existed – price behavior.

In December, I was bullish banks and got criticized and mocked.

In February, I suggested Greece didn’t matter and got flamed relentlessly.

Last week, I was quoted here saying:

Market particpants are deeply anxious and despondent after years of crisis, whipsaw and increased global macro complexity, but this is the stuff new bull markets are built upon.

…and people I respect called bullshit.

Smart people can criticize and rail against reality all day long everyday forever and do it nobly because leaders the world over HAVE made a giant mess of things. But such nobility is underperforming and you can see it in persistently punk hedge fund performance numbers.

Perhaps, the mess, after being hashed and rehashed, is in the market while price is sniffing out something more constructive.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

Indeed.