Pun intended. You’re welcome.

Noted stock market bear Doug Kass has an interesting article here: Kass: 10 Reasons the Market Has Peaked

His reason no. 1 , and “At the core of my pessimism” is “Rising interest rates pose more of a threat to growth than many believe.”

Of course, he has another 9 reasons. Worth a read.

From elsewhere comes a less noted item …. Soros Fund Bets On Lower Stock Market (SPY Puts)

This article is based on Soros’ latest 13F (to June 30 … OK, so it could well be outdated) which says:

  • the largest position the fund now holds is SPY Puts …(although we don’t know the exact structure of target dates and prices).
  • The position (SPY Puts) relative to the total size of the fund increased from 1.28% to 4.79% over Q1 (more than tripled) and has increased to 13.54% over Q2 (almost tripled again)

The US stock market has defied all bears for years now (except during the debt ceiling debacle and subsequent credit downgrade, which was a nice quick and easy bear’s picnic), but here are two articles to chew over.

Comments, thoughts, views … all welcome, as always.