Posted By thestatedtruth.com on June 8, 2010

 From Art Cashin on the floor of The New York Stock Exchange today!

Fedspeak – Chairman Bernanke gave a speech last night.  It wasn’t exactly a barn burner but he did suggest that while the recovery will be slow and joyless, it will not produce a double dip. 

 Janet Yellen, in her Monday speech did not seem so sure.  Here’s a bit of what she said:

Although signs of recovery do abound, there are obviously significant headwinds to stability that remain…Those headwinds come from structural imbalances from financial sector weaknesses and uncertainties from unanticipated environmental and political events.

The key take-away for me is the phrase “headwinds to stability”.  She did not say headwinds to recovery.  It is stability itself that she fears is threatened.  Sounds like worrying about a double dip to me.

Hope Among The Ashes? – Yesterday, we wrote about the very rare occurrence of the Trin hitting double digits.  We noted that it has only hit double digits three times in 40 years.  Thanks to Barry Ritholtz’s nifty and informative blog “The Big Picture” we have access to Richard Arms assessment of the potential meaning of such an occurrence.  Arms, as you know is the father of the Trin and, thus, should be most knowledgeable on the topic.  He suggests it could be suggesting a bottom rather than the start of a selloff.  It’s an interesting read but too long to print here.  Go The Big Picture and link it up.

Ouch! – Here’s a bit from a Bloomberg piece on some downbeat comments by Tony Crescenzi.

June 8 (Bloomberg) — Nations have reached a “Keynesian endpoint” as exhausted balance sheets leave policy makers with few options to bolster economic growth, according to Anthony Crescenzi, an investor at Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s largest bond-fund manager.

“Time, devaluations, and debt restructurings might be the only way out for many nations,” Crescenzi wrote in an e-mailed note titled “Keynesian Endpoint” that referenced the Great Depression era economist John Maynard Keynes.   Debt-fueled spending programs aimed at combating the global financial crisis of 2008 are among policy tools now “being seen as a magic elixir that has morphed into poison.”

Tony’s point is pretty much that the canteen is empty.  A double dip would be faced with no ammo left.

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