Jim Paulsen: "Rising confidence is driving the stock market higher"

People are having trouble understanding why the market is going up when the economy is growing slowly, jobs are hard to find, and corporate profit growth is slowing, and they are left with the idea that the rally is just a sugar high from the Fed.  My take is that rising confidence is driving the stock market higher, [adding that investors now believe the worst-case fears they've harbored since the 2008 financial crisis won't be realized].

~ Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, "Bull Run Gets Solid Footing," USA Today, May 29, 2013

Brian Belski: "The economy is on a stronger footing"

The economic numbers we're seeing are confirming what the U.S. stock market has been telling us all year: The economy is on a stronger footing and improving longer-term.

~ Brian Belski, chief investment strategist at BMO Capital Markets, "Bull Run Gets Solid Footing," USA Today, May 29, 2013

Randall Forsyth on the great central banking experiment

The unprecedented expansion of central bank liquidity, both to spur expansion and accommodate massive fiscal deficits, constitutes an experiment to prove an untested hypothesis.  Not all experiments succeed.  Some seem promising as the outset, but negative side effects can emerge from the novel therapy.

~ Randall W. Forsyth, ""Get Ready for a Summer of Discontent," Barron's Up & Down Wall Street column, May 27, 2013

Hedge fund guru David Tepper on tapering Fed's QE and burying short sellers

There better be a true [Fed] taper or else you might be back into the last half of 1999.  So like guys that are short, they better have a shovel to get themselves out of the grave.

If the Fed doesn't taper back, we're going to get into this hyper-drive market.  It's a backwards argument. To keep the markets going up at a steady pace the Fed has to taper back.

~ David Tepper, as appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box, May 14, 2013

Wilmington Trust analyst bullish: "momentum is really strong"

There isn't a technical level that we have in mind at this point when making decisions. The momentum is really strong, and riding along that momentum is what we should have in mind at this point.

~ Cam Albright, director of asset allocation at Wilmington Trust Investment Advisors, "Correction talk gets old as market sails ahead," Fox Business News, May 18, 2013

The Washington Post on quantitative easing

We can argue all day long about whether quantitative easing policies from the world's central banks are doing much to help the economy. But this much is for darn sure: It is boosting a wide range of financial markets ... So, why are some of the people who you would think would be the biggest beneficiaries of this strategy so angry about it? That was the consistent tone among titans of the hedge fund industry at the Sohn Investment Conference conference [sic] Wednesday ... Zero interest rates from the Fed haven't sparked inflation; interest rates have fallen despite huge government deficits; and the stock market has risen steadily in the face of a still-weak economy ... it may just be more convenient to blame the (bearded) man behind the curtain as the master market manipulator than to own up to your mistakes.

~ The Washington Post, May 9, 2013

Jim Paulsen on gold: "The Armageddon premium is coming out"

People have been told the world is going to end for five years, and it hasn’t, so they’re finally moving on.  So even when crisis flashes now, you don’t get the same upside, and then in good times, you get more downside, and that’s what you’re getting in gold as the Armageddon premium is coming out.

 

~ James Paulsen, the Minneapolis-based chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, which oversees $325 billion of assets, "Gold Bears Pull $20.8 Billion as BlackRock Says Buy: Commodities," Bloomberg.com, May 12, 2013