With one after another bank issuing downgrade reports on global stocks, including such stalwarts as JPM and, most recently, Goldman, overnight a far more important market entity - the world's largest asset manager - joined the club when BlackRock downgraded U.S. and European stocks to neutral, citing elevated U.S. valuations and the higher probability of a midyear interest-rate increase by the Federal Reserve.
With the Treasury yield curve collapsing - 2s10s now at 92bps, its lowest since Dec 2007, AcrossTheCurve.com's John Jansen offers Ed Yardeni's insights into the problems the curve is suggesting are here...
After 15 years of claiming that Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible and acted alone, high-ranking Americans are publicly blaming Saudi Arabia for the 9/11 terrorist attacks…. and now Saudi Arabia is publicly blaming the United States. However, according to investigative journalist Wayne Masden, it was American neocons, Saudi Arabia and Israel that successfully pulled off the September 11 attacks. They are now infighting to the point that the layers of secrecy surrounding the crime of the 21st century, are starting to peel away.
Max Boot offers some typically wrongheaded thoughts on America’s foreign wars. He alleges that the U.S. has a habit of losing “won” wars:
What do all these betrayals of trust have in common? A failure by the American population and politicians to sustain a long-term commitment that would build on battlefield gains [bold mine-DL].