George Orwell on politics

In our age there is no such thing as "keeping out of politics." All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

~ George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays

Dennis Gartman: Stocks melting up, think like a 4-year old

We are in fact melting up.  We just continue to make new highs and the odds are we will continue to make new highs...  It's still a bull market...  Sometimes thinking like a 4-year old, looking to see what the general trend is, is the best way of trading, the best way of investing.  Sometimes we make it just far too complicated and get in our own way.

~ Dennis Gartman, "More Melt-Up for Equities - Dennis Gartman," Kitco News, August 28, 2014

Aaron Task on the absence of irrational exuberance (2014)

I don't see much of any signs of irrational exuberance.  We've got the Shiller piece.  We're here talking about things people are worried about.  Who is out there banging the table saying, "you've gotta own stocks, they're fantastic, they're great, buy 'em here?"  Everyone thinks the wheels are about to come off the bus.  So until we get to a place where everyone says you can't lose in the stock market, then call me and talk about irrational exuberance.

~ Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance interview, August 18, 2014

Paul Schatz: Bull market climbing a wall of worry, on the verge of an "amazing glorious run"

In my 25 year career I've never seen a bull market more disavowed, more hated than this one.  People rationalize why the Dow should not be close to 17,000.  And until the masses stop worrying about why the Dow should be at any given point... this is how a bull market climbs a wall of worry.  Until the average person stops saying "it shouldn't be" and says "it should be," the bull market's gonna live on, much like happened in 2000 where the last couple of years everyone said "it shouldn't be here, it shouldn't be here."  And the final run up into the 2000 peak was this glorious run, albeit in very few sectors.  I don't think we're there yet.  I think before this bull market ends, you're gonna have an amazing glorious run in a narrow group of stocks and sectors and that's going to be the final straw that breaks the camel's back.

Paul Schatz, president, Heritage Capital, interview on Yahoo Finance, August 14, 2014

Peter Schiff bullish on non-U.S. equities

I talk about gold because hardly anybody else does. I do believe gold should be owned but I don't think it should be owned exclusively.  I think people should have most of their money in equities. I just have a problem in the U.S. market because of the massive economic collapse I see in our future, and because our markets are overvalued.

~ Peter Schiff, "'Perma-bear' Schiff's funds have been on a roll," as appeared on CNBC, August 12, 2014

Michael Belkin on the speculative bubble

I don't think people are really contemplating what they're doing in the stock market.  I do a Google Trends word search, tells you the number of times people look for a term.  And when you do that on the term "speculative bubble" it doesn't even register in July - zero.  Hardly anything in the headlines of news stories.  So nobody's even thinking... they're not calling this - which I consider to be the biggest speculative bubble of my career - beyond 2000, beyond 2007.  This is the everything bubble: junk bonds, stocks, tech stocks, you name it.  Everybody is in here for one reason and one reason only: because interest rates are low.  That's the definition of a speculative bubble.  It's created by phony interest rates.

~ Michael Belkin, August 9, 2014, interview with Eric King on King World News

Dennis Gartman buys the dip

This is not a weak economy, it's a pleasantly strong economy.  This is a nicely strengthening economy.  This is a very well demeanored economy.  It's not an excited one.  It's one that's doing quietly better...  Let's all be calm and not be panicked at this point.  I turned from being quite bullish of stocks to being neutral early last week and I have to tell you, I never thought we'd see the market fall several hundred Dow points in the course of three or four days.  I got very lucky, and I'm going to turn back to being bullish again.

~ Dennis Gartman, as appeared on CNBC, August 4, 2014

Jonathan Golub: "The economic environment remains healthy; stocks should rebound" (2014)

The economic environment remains healthy. As such, volatility should decline and stocks should rebound.

~ Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. market strategist at RBC Capital Markets, "Despite sharp selloff, too early to worry about a correction," Reuters, August 2, 2014