The Last Hurrah -Grantham

[jk]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

ddn3f asked:

How good is that guy?

VERY good. He's the best chart technician I've come across in my thirty-one years of trading futures and twenty-five years of investing and trading stocks.

No one is infallible, there is no "holy grail" of Technical Analysis (although W. D. Gann came close), and charting is NOT a Crystal Ball. Having said that, Lorusso's calls on Crude Oil have been nothing less than amazing. I would give him an A+++ in the four-and-a-half years I've been reading his comments on Crude Oil. (On May 29, 2008, he called for a Major Top and a "Mini-Crash".) His call on Crude during the Summer and Fall of 2006 were also very good. I'm attaching a file where he made these calls on Crude.

On Gold, in his post of September 6, 2007 he called for a breakout to a new high (above the $723 high set in May 2006). On January 22, 2009 he published a report saying that the setup in gold was the inverse of the October 2008 low, and that gold was likely to top out between $928.70 - 938.20. He missed that one by $67 but never sold it short.

On the S&P 500 I would give him an A - he hasn't been incredible with the stock indexes, but he's been very good. He called for a rally in his post of February 26, 2009 with an outstanding call for a bottom between 685 and the lows of that week (737.50) basis the SPX. The bottom on March 6 was 667.

I find his work to be very helpful - when filtered through the excellent fundamental analysis of EJ and others. When an accurate assessment of the fundamentals point us to the correct asset class, a good technician can help us obtain a better (lower) average price for our investments.

what's he saying about oil lately?

[LargoWinch]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

Raz, can you please tell me how do you get access to "Lorusso" research and analysis?

It this part of SmithBarney wealth management services or is it a paid subscrition service?

Thanks.

[solotar]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

This is as bad a piece by Grantham as I can remember. Market might go way up for a while before it goes down unless of course it doesn't go up but rather goes down and the economy might indeed grow by the end of the year though it might actually be worse than anybody fears and ... got it?

The stuff Grantham wrote last year was much more tightly reasoned and much more compelling. My guess is that Grantham feels strangely screwed: his macro forecast for the past decade was spot on, and his shorter-term calls of the past 18 months were also spot on ... and yet GMO investors didn't do all that well, to put it mildly. Yes, they always say the "private investors" did better than the mutual fund investors. But check out the lousy mutual fund returns. Makes you wonder: how lousy are the investment returns going to be if the forecast is actually wrong?

This question seems to haunt every sentence.

[CanuckinTX]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

This is as bad a piece by Grantham as I can remember. Market might go way up for a while before it goes down unless of course it doesn't go up but rather goes down and the economy might indeed grow by the end of the year though it might actually be worse than anybody fears and ... got it?

The stuff Grantham wrote last year was much more tightly reasoned and much more compelling. My guess is that Grantham feels strangely screwed: his macro forecast for the past decade was spot on, and his shorter-term calls of the past 18 months were also spot on ... and yet GMO investors didn't do all that well, to put it mildly. Yes, they always say the "private investors" did better than the mutual fund investors. But check out the lousy mutual fund returns. Makes you wonder: how lousy are the investment returns going to be if the forecast is actually wrong?

This question seems to haunt every sentence.

I think in his defence you have to understand the situation right now is anything but clear. Even on iTulip you can see the wide variation in opinions of 'what's next' and EJ himself hasn't been able to make any obvious calls (well, I say obvious but I mean to him, not me) because of all of the competing forces out there right now. Up until last fall everyone on this site seemed to be in some agreement that things couldn't last much longer but now that the market has taken a big spill and the gov't has gotten into this hand over fist it's not so easy to unravel.

If you have a sure fire can't miss prediction how the rest of the year goes I'm sure we'd all love to hear it!

[metalman]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

This is as bad a piece by Grantham as I can remember. Market might go way up for a while before it goes down unless of course it doesn't go up but rather goes down and the economy might indeed grow by the end of the year though it might actually be worse than anybody fears and ... got it?

The stuff Grantham wrote last year was much more tightly reasoned and much more compelling. My guess is that Grantham feels strangely screwed: his macro forecast for the past decade was spot on, and his shorter-term calls of the past 18 months were also spot on ... and yet GMO investors didn't do all that well, to put it mildly. Yes, they always say the "private investors" did better than the mutual fund investors. But check out the lousy mutual fund returns. Makes you wonder: how lousy are the investment returns going to be if the forecast is actually wrong?

This question seems to haunt every sentence.

granthum 'gets' bubbles and other itulip stuff but can't make the leap to do much with the insights... to save his investors' money. both itulip and granthum saw the bear market coming in 2008, but itulip said it'd go down ala nikkei 40% so... sell everything... go to cash, except a rump of gold. these fund guys can never push their guys into a cash position. why? they don't make any money if they do. no one will pay a manager to sit in cash... paradoxical. hope itulip resists the lure of a fund... the 2% mgt fee.

[Raz]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

what's he saying about oil lately?

I only get the Weekly Technical Focus, not his daily chart work, so there might be some holes in these opinions. (I am, however, far more interested in his Longer-Term work (Weekly and Monthly charts) because I make my own entry decisions off of my own daily charts.)

He hasn't said a lot about Crude Oil lately, but he does cover it [briefly] on page 3 of this most recent publication.

[Raz]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

Raz, can you please tell me how do you get access to "Lorusso" research and analysis?

It this part of SmithBarney wealth management services or is it a paid subscrition service?

Thanks.

I can, LargoWinch, but it won't do you much good. It's not offered as a paid subscription. I've been a Registered Guest for almost five years and have obtained a lot of excellent equity research as a result. I stumbled upon Lorusso by accident while checking "Investment Ideas". That particular page posts his weekly commentary and I began to read it regularly. I immediately perceived this guy to be good, but it took over a year of following him to realize just how good he really was.

NOW, as to why it won't do you much good to register... I just received this message from Citi Smith-Barney:

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Thanks to the gross mismanagement of Citigroup I've just lost a source of free research. BUT, I'm opening a futures account in about two weeks so I will have even better access to his thoughts, and I will certainly be willing to share them with anyone who requests it via private E-mail.

Now I only hope I can afford the *vast rate increase* by EJ and Fred when my iTulip subscription renews this Summer! :eek: If not, I won't be around to share it !!!

[pescamaaan]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

granthum 'gets' bubbles and other itulip stuff but can't make the leap to do much with the insights... to save his investors' money. both itulip and granthum saw the bear market coming in 2008, but itulip said it'd go down ala nikkei 40% so... sell everything... go to cash, except a rump of gold. these fund guys can never push their guys into a cash position. why? they don't make any money if they do. no one will pay a manager to sit in cash... paradoxical. hope itulip resists the lure of a fund... the 2% mgt fee.

Grantham has addressed this problem many times in his quarterly letter and has said on numerous occasions to be in as much cash as you can bear (no pun intended). But he does point out that it's not the job of the manager to hold cash and therefore he himself faces the issue of what to do with it when everything is a bubble.

12/31/2006:

Boringly, I’m afraid, as long as the market keeps doing its
thing, our recommendations will not change: avoid risk,
especially emphasize high fundamental quality in stocks;
don’t be too proud to hold simple ole cash,

03/31/2007:

...have resulted
in a world where investors are paying for the privilege
of taking risk! If you believed this data you should, of
course, put all your money in cash.

12/31/2007:

So what to buy? I’m afraid cash is the ugly answer that no one ever wants to hear. For the first 1st time in many
bear markets traditional value stocks are unlikely to help
much and may even hurt as they entered the decline badly
overpriced.

03/31/2008:

just take a deep breath, hunker down with cash, and live
to fight another day.

[Raz]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

Stockman,

I almost feel as though I've highjacked your thread!

I'm going to check whatever archive I have of Grantham to try and ascertain just how good he's been. My guess is that he's been very good with the macro-picture and fundamental backdrop when allocating funds to equities.

[stockman]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

Stockman,

I almost feel as though I've highjacked your thread!

I'm going to check whatever archive I have of Grantham to try and ascertain just how good he's been. My guess is that he's been very good with the macro-picture and fundamental backdrop when allocating funds to equities.

RAZ-

Go for it... I am swamped on my farm right now. Irrigation pump out, broken hydraulic hoses on my stacker, flat tire on my truck this morning... on top of the regular stuff as growing season kicks in.

If you are registered on GMO's site... go to library to see Granthan letters back to 1999.

https://www.gmo.com/America/Library/Letters/

[stockman]

Re: The Last Hurrah -Grantham

I think in his defence you have to understand the situation right now is anything but clear. Even on iTulip you can see the wide variation in opinions of 'what's next' and EJ himself hasn't been able to make any obvious calls (well, I say obvious but I mean to him, not me) because of all of the competing forces out there right now. Up until last fall everyone on this site seemed to be in some agreement that things couldn't last much longer but now that the market has taken a big spill and the gov't has gotten into this hand over fist it's not so easy to unravel.

If you have a sure fire can't miss prediction how the rest of the year goes I'm sure we'd all love to hear it!

Everyone is hedging their wagers here. BCA May 11-

"The wide confidence intervals around the employment survey data make it difficult to infer
much more than the fact that the economy was
still contracting in April. Still, there were some
hopeful signs. Job losses were better on a rate of
change basis and in the manufacturing sector,
overtime hours and the average workweek
posted small increases. The latter value is one of
the ten components of the Leading Economic Indicator (LEI) and confirms the message being delivered by all of the other components. In fact,
our preliminary estimate for the LEI in April
(based on seven of the ten components) shows a

dramatic jump ( Chart 10). More important, this

rebound is centered in the economic data, i.e. it

is even more pronounced when the monetary
components (the yield curve and real money

growth) are excluded (thick line in

Chart 10).

Evidence is mounting that the economy may be

entering a bottoming phase, with positive growth
likely in the second half of the year. Still, any revival in economic growth will be tenuous given
the fragility of the banking sector and escalating
corporate default rate. The recovery could also
be easily derailed if private sector borrowing

rates are allowed to rise prematurely."