Well there are certainly a number of investment professionals and so called financial guru's that agree with you. Certain people have said that the bottom will drop out of the stock market for years. I think that Obama's attempt to do the Iran deal is trying to prop up the economy so the country does not end up in another economic recession. It may be something that will have a marginal affect on the economy.
I'm not necessarily sure about most places teetering on recession. I just think we're seeing a lot of lower growth in places. A lot of the recent volatility has been all about China's growth and that country certainly isn't teetering. Also, the fact that we're still talking about a possible rate rise in the US suggests that things aren't that bad there. But I would admit that those places exposed to commodity prices (Russia, Brazil) are struggling and Europe still has a lot of growth issues. Whether that means it's time for a bear market, I'm not sure yet. We're barely getting over the bull market...
Re bottom-up investing: Today, the Dow was down 239 points, 1.45%. Of course a number of my long positions were somewhat lower... However, 3 companies I'd previously picked up shares of after big selloffs were up big: Vitae Pharma up 89%; Wafergen Bio-systems up 54%; and Akebia Therapeutics up 45%... I took some profits off the table on these 3. I also bought some Tetraphase Pharma after it sold off 79% on a drug failure; and Flexion and Theravance were also down 24 and 21% respectively, and I bought a little of each of these. Of course it was a pretty good day overall on the short side as well.
Did anybody catch David Tepper on CNBC this morning? http://www.marketwatch.com/story/da...some-money-out-of-the-stock-market-2015-09-10
Of the 6 points mentioned above, I most agree with point number 5 and point number 6. Global trade is currently in free-fall and much of the same can be said about global market conditions in general. Downgrades in ratings and outlooks, seem to looming for quite a few trading partners to the US, if they aren't already in effect. Point number 6, about the Fed and it's tightening policy, has to be the most directly influential point in my view. Investors are concerned about the market's ability to sustain itself without the assistance of the Federal Reserve; we've experienced 8 years of accommodative policy. I have a differing view with regards to the first point; with my analysis I've largely found that quite a large number of stocks are still largely undervalued. More specifically I've viewed that there are certain industries where to prices of stocks are generally undervalued.
