Kass: Triple Lindy Redux
July 11, 2010 at 8:07 pm Leave a comment
About a year ago, I wrote about Doug Kass (founder and president of Seabreeze Partners) and his attempt at pulling off the famous “Triple Lindy” dive, which was made famous in the classic movie Back to School starring Rodney Dangerfield. If I were a judge, I would say Kass’s landing wasn’t a perfect 10, but rather closer to a 6.5. After successfully nailing the bear market in 2008, and subsequently declaring the “generational low” of March 2009, Kass became cautious in June 2009. At the time, Kass pulled in his horns by pronouncing a consumer-led double dip in late 2009 or in the first half 2010 from a consumption binge hangover, while declaring his previous 1050 S&P 500 index target as overly ambitious. What actually transpired is the S&P 500 went from around 942 to 1220 over the next ten months, or up about +30%.
Today, Kass is trying to make another large splash, but now he is reversing course and once more calling for a rally…at least a mini one. Rather than speaking in terms of his previous generational low (S&P 666), Kass sees the recent lows around 1,010 being the “bottom for the year” and his new 2010 target is based on climbing to positive territory for the year, implying a +10% to +12% move from the beginning of July.
View Doug Kass Interview and Prediction
Kass is not your traditional investor, and he admits as much:
“I’m not a perma-bear, I’m not a perma-bull. I try to be flexible and eclectic in my view, and this is especially necessary in a market, which is so volatile as it’s been for the last several years.”
In explaining his upbeat rationale, Kass highlights nuanced aspects to employment data, payroll growth, moderate economic expansion, and an attractive valuation for the overall market:
“I’m not technically based, therefore I’m not sentiment based, I’m fundamental based….The markets are traveling on a path of fear and share prices have significantly disconnected from fundamentals.”
Even if Kass didn’t nail the “Triple Lindy,” he still deserves special attention as a practitioner, in addition to his side job as a market prognosticator. Additional recognition is warranted solely based on the potshots he aimed at rent-a-strategists like Nouriel Roubini, CNBC celebrity, (see Roubini articles #1 or #2) and Robert Prechter, long-running technician who is currently predicting Dow destruction to unfathomable level of 1,000. I’m not in the business of predicting short-term market gyrations, but I’ll enjoy watching Kass’s next dive to see whether he’ll make a splash or not.
Wade W. Slome, CFA, CFP®
Plan. Invest. Prosper.
*DISCLOSURE: Sidoxia Capital Management (SCM) and some of its clients own certain exchange traded funds, but at the time of publishing SCM had no direct positions in any other security referenced in this article. No information accessed through the Investing Caffeine (IC) website constitutes investment, financial, legal, tax or other advice nor is to be relied on in making an investment or other decision. Please read disclosure language on IC “Contact” page.
Entry filed under: Profiles. Tags: double dip, Doug Kass, Douglass Kass, forecast, investments, Rodney Dangerfield, stock market, triple lindy.
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