Like most of my Paleolithic peers, a large portion of my youth was informed by comic books. Doesn’t seem like today’s young bloods have followed this example – perhaps too many other forms of mindless entertainment are available to them. My information in this regard is entirely anecdotal, but if I’m correct, it’s sort of a shame. There’s something transcendent about lying on a bunk bed, perhaps head upside down, and thumbing through the type of publication that requires perhaps the least mental energy of anything on the planet. That something may now be lost.
Back in the dizzle, though, I had the guilty pleasure of favoring the more effete of these periodicals – Archie, Richie Rich, Nancy and (personal fave) Family Circus – over the brawnier superhero publications preferred by most of my crew.
There was, however, one exception: though I’m not sure why, while I was often bored with such eternal Y-chromosome driven classics as Superman, the Fantastic Four, etc., I had a real soft spot for Captain Marvel. Perhaps the main reason for this is the clever backstory. CM’s true identity is 12-that of year-old Billy Batson, a fraudulently disinherited, homeless boy who finds himself able to transform into the good Captain (and though I never figured out why he’d ever do so, back to Billy), with massive attendant superpowers, by simply uttering our title phrase: SHAZAM.
Further investigation reveals that SHAZAM is an acronym for various gods of antiquity (“the immortal elders”), from whom Billy draws his powers: Solomon for Wisdom; Hercules for Strength; Atlas for Stamina, Zues for Power (Billy is even able to summon Zeus’s thunderbolts at will); Achilles for Courage and Mercury for (what else?) Speed. Of course, he used these powers exclusively to fight evil, and, over the course of his magnificent but relatively brief initial run (155 skinny editions, released between 1939 and 1955), he routinely encounters, and bests, not only his nemesis: Doctor Thaddeus Bodog Sivana, but also Nazis, mass murderers and the IRS (OK; not the IRS).
From Left to Right: Captain Marvel, Billy Batson and Dr. Thadddeus Sivana
Lately I’ve been searching for Captain Marvel, not on his home turf: the streets of fictional Fawcett City, but through the windy caverns of Lower Manhattan, locus of the entirely nonfictional Wall Street that occupies so much of the attentions of my readership.
I do so because the markets appear to be in SHAZAM mode, and, if so, then Captain Marvel must be lurking about somewhere. It’s of vital importance that we find him, because, if, purposely or by accident, he happens to re-utter the word SHAZAM, the thunderbolts disappear, and we will once again be operating under the care of the affable, good-hearted, but likely ineffectual for our purposes Billy Batson.
This, my loves, we cannot abide, so if I do see Captain Marvel, I’ll hazard everything to duck-tape1 his mouth shut.
1 Now, before you persnickety pains in the rear jump all over me for incorrect nomenclature,
you should know that what is now commonly referred to as duct tape was actually first called
duck tape, so named by the army because water rolled off of it like on a duck’s back.
Powered, apparently, by Q2 earnings, the SPX and Dow steamrolled their ways to yet another set of what is becoming a somewhat tiring new all-time highs. They may have justification for doing so, as the 6% of the precincts reporting thus far (Goldman pre-announcement laid aside) are sharing glad tidings indeed. Moreover, their vigor, albeit on a small sample, is widespread, and applicable to both earnings and revenues:
Notably, by one measure, the rally catapulted valuations to elevations not seen since the yuck-filled days of 2007. To wit: he aggregate capitalization of worldwide equity securities has once again exceed 100% of global GDP:
Part of me is inclined to give all the credit to Captain Marvel’s SHAZAM effect, but the fact is his efforts in this regard received a welcome assist from his trusty financial manager, Chairwoman Yellen (aka Janet Marvelous), who over the course of her two-day/midweek Humphrey Hawkins testimony, warbled out Panglossian (best of all possible worlds) arias that spoke of benign but constructive economic conditions across this fair land. And investors cooed with delight.
But from my vantage-point, troubles persist on the periphery of this Eden. As foretold in these pages, macro numbers are decidedly mixed. Friday’s CPI print clocked in at 1.6%: a figure which, if my math is correct, falls visibly short of the 2% target. Contemporaneously, Retail Sales figures dropped, and looked like this:
In addition to the foregoing, we’ve got the North Koreans, the Chinese, Health Care Legislation (or lack thereof), the meddlesome Russians (who, if the mainstream press is to be believed, are now acting in such a way as to induce our citizenry to wax nostalgic for Stalin’s U.S.S.R.), Investigations and a host of other demons lurking about — all of which should serve to keep Captain Marvel sufficiently busy for the rest of the decade, should he choose to continue to fight our battles. Any and all of these should put some pressure on valuations, but you wouldn’t know it by reading the tape. As one example of this, consider the fact that as the Gallant 500 soars to the heavens, short interest in their affairs has hit a low point not witnessed since (you guessed it) 2007:
I’m also keeping an eye on Friday’s somewhat unexpected power run by the Aussie Dollar, which came seemingly out of nowhere in the last 4 hours of the trading week:
AUD 1 Month:
In light of all of the above, I will cop to being somewhat confused. Something about this tape just doesn’t feel right, and, while I am not inclined to prophesy a major reversal of market fortunes, I would offer the following bit of risk management advice:
The low vol/benign conditions cannot last forever, and again, when the inexorable forces of human uncertainty manifest in the markets, it’s likely to be at a point designed to inflect maximum pain on the collective P/L of my constituency. You may see me repeat this message to the point of annoyance: there’s more risk in your portfolios than your reports are showing, and I’d advise everyone to act accordingly. This doesn’t mean heading for the exits, but it does impel an extra measure of caution with respect to your investment activities.
If all else fails, of course, we can always channel our inner Billy Batson, and rely on SHAZAM to save us. But even this course is potentially hazardous; the sacred phrase is reserved exclusively for the battle against evil, and may not work to the same effect outside this context. Case and point; approximately a decade after Captain Marvel’s original run, the phrase was resurrected by Gomer Pyle, first in the sublime Andy Griffith Show, and then across his eponymous spinoff series.
To the best of my recollection, Gomer was indeed something of a comic book savant, but his use of the phrase brought about no extraordinary super-powers beyond a reliable laugh line. As such, it perhaps proved the truism that even the most divine of mankind’s conceptual powers are subject to erosion through the forces of time and overuse: a reality that my investment family would also do well to remember in these confusing times.
TIMSHEL