Friday, September 5, 2008

"Meltdown"-Société Générale

From The Big Picture:

When people try to figure out what was the cause of today's 344 point whackage, one of the items they will point to will be SocGen's alert today from Albert Edwards:

***Alert****Economic and equity market meltdown imminent****Alert***

Last week saw the publication of Q2 US whole economy profits data. They were shockingly bad. Core measures of profitability are in free-fall and have now reached a tipping point, where corporate activity could easily implode. We have also reached the point where companies give up ‘manipulating’ their profits higher and admit they are actually in free-fall. A combination of economic and reported profits slumping will catalyse the next equity downleg....MORE

A couple of prior posts on Société Générale's calls:

June 26
Société Générale: “We see a y-shaped global recession. We are going down before looping backwards”

May 8
This Week’s Advice: Canned Food, Guns and a Ham Radio
...*Soc Gen strategists have been bearish for about a decade, as they note in their commentary, as they expected equities to go through a period of “valuation de-rating similar to Japan.” ...