Jim Grant of Grant's Interest Rate Observer: "No Fed Taper This Year"

From The Daily Ticker:

As the government prepares for worker furloughs starting Tuesday if Congress doesn’t avert a shutdown and as Washington gets ready for a debt ceiling fight that could follow -- markets are a snooze.

The Dow (^DJI) has gained more than 3% this month, 10-year Treasury yields have fallen since the Fed’s “no taper” news after briefly hitting (gasp) 3% and gold hasn’t been doing much of late.

But Jim Grant, founder and editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, reminds The Daily Ticker that unlike 2010, when the memory of 2008 was fresh in investors’ minds and we had a “bull market in fear,” we are now in a “bear market in fear.”

He says experts can read this in the depths of the options markets, where people are no longer buying derivatives to protect themselves agains 'tail risks, but are "getting in the swim of things going up."

So this moment may be a fairly good one in which to begin fretting (though he advises against being a permanent worry wart), according to Mr. Grant.....MORE