The Mood around New York

To most market observers David Rosenberg of the Toronto-based money management firm, Gluskin Sheff, is one of the most savvy market strategists around. For those who are interested, he sends out a highly informative daily eletter to anyone who signs up on the Gluskin Sheff site. I recommend it highly. Link here.

Anyway, being a market strategist is not just about numbers and charts. It also involves getting a feel for the mood of a place. Today while writing about what he assures us is the end of the cyclical bull market that began a year ago March, Rosenberg offered a description of New York City, then and now. Then would be during the worst phase of the financial crisis. Now would be now.

In his words: "Back in 2008, I recall marketing in midtown and walking along 5th Avenue, I recall that nobody was carrying any bags or boxes and that everyone looked catatonic, as if they were on Prozac. In the last six weeks I have been to the city twice, and both times it seemed to me that everyone was walking around as though they were on heroin. Smiles everywhere, and a general sense that things were good, though nobody really seemed to know why."

I'm not sure that his opinion of the effect of Prozac will help Rosenberg with his psychiatry boards, but sometimes outsiders can take the pulse of a place much better than those who live there and who are part of the ambient mood. To sum it up, to his contrarian mind, New York's happiness feels drug induced. That calls for caution.