Birinyi Goes Short Term Bullish

CNBC’s NYSE floor reporter Bob Pisani has been reporting today that Laslo Birinyi, Forbes columnist and well followed market analyst, has gone short term bullish in a note released late night characterizing his position as “a churning market within a wide range but with an upward bias”.

In his most recent Forbes column, “Recessions and Bears”, written about two weeks ago it seems from the stock price quotes, the money quote is:

The bearish arguments for 2008 aren’t any more valid. Many bears expect a recession, which they assume is poison for market performance. Not quite. In the 11 recessions since World War II the market has averaged a 3% gain, despite the inclusion in that data set of the 23% decline in 1974. During 6 of those downturns the S&P went up. If 2008 is a recession year, it is not automatically fated to be bad for stocks [bold and italics added].

I’m still of the view that we got a ways more on the downside over the next year or two.