"I must admit, whenever someone pulls up a price chart and starts extrapolating conclusions about the future based on it, my attention levels instantly drop to zero."
Indeed. Especially when there is some sort commercial outworking associated with the making of those extrapolations, such as a subscription-based financial service.
To quote another HotCopper contributor (who, I think, is a quite lucid and critical thinker) from a different thread:
"We all know (or should know) that we need to be sceptical about economic forecasts - especially about what is impending(doom, boom, bust etc).
In my mind, we need to be doubly sceptical of those that speak in the language of "I'm worried about this, and I'm worried about this, and this, and this, and this" rather than in the language of "On the one hand this, but on the other hand this".
And triply when they they tell you that they have the insights because they've studied the data (implying that clearly no one else has).
And quadruply when they are trying to sell you something."
In the light of this, while I didn't watch the entire video, only a few minutes after the recommended bit that deals with the European banks, between 38:20 and around 39:00 there was this:
"But there's two really big ones left that I haven't yet talked about on Real Vision; some of you will have read it in Global Macro Investor; for those of you who are subscribers... and then recently, I published... much later than I published in Global Macro Investor... I published in in Macro Insiders, and in Think Tank... my "Doom Loop" article. And if any of you are interested in this piece you should all go back and have a look at that article. If you are not subscribers, sign up for a free trial and go and have a look at this article. And this goes through all that I am talking about in great length. I think there is something really interesting; in Macro Insiders, Julian Brigden and myself debated at length about what this really means, and whether a recession is really coming. We'll probably show that later this week as well because something from Macro Insiders will really add value to you, much like this Doom Loop article."
Couple of nicely timed plugs for an assortment of products that the listener can acquire, if his/her interest is sufficiently piqued by "Doom Loop".
Because, whatever that is, it doesn't sound at all good.
(I'd better sign up to find out what it all means and how it is going to affect me).
I have a feeling that subscription numbers will be a lot lower if the "Doom Loop" article was entitled something less scary, such as "Its Just A Market Normal Cycle", or "As Always, Some Companies Do Well; Some Don't", or "Who Can Really Know What the Future Holds?"
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