Me vs Jeff Rubin

Several months ago, I wrote a rant about Jeff Rubin, CIBC’s Cheif Economist. I was perturbed about the fact that he was receiving a bunch of media attention about his doom and gloom prophecies for 2009. According to this CBC article, for example:

“Even with a second-half recovery, it is hard to see the TSX beyond 9,000 by the end of the year,” Rubin said.

The reticence among investors to buy already-cheap stocks, experts said, could depress equity values.

Canada’s main stock exchange closed 2008 at 8,988, already well off of its peaks of last summer.

Once a recovery takes hold, Canadians could see a TSX at 11,000 by the end of 2010, still 30 per cent below these lofty level of mid-2008, CIBC said.

Just for the record, as of this moment, the TSX is sitting at about 11,500. Back in March, I said that Canadian banks would be doing just fine and, look! They’ve been held up as models of banking all over the world.

Rubin’s a knob.

Oh, what’s that?

The TSX should begin to recover by the end of 2009, Rubin said, but only to a level equal to its closing one year earlier.

That’s funny, your counterparts over at TD announced today that the recession was over. No, I’m not picking and choosing whcih economists to listen to. The TD folks are too rosy in their predictions, but I’d rather have good news overstated than bad.

There’s enough bad in the world without dumbass economists driving people to panic, increasing the bad.

My prediction for 2010? Some/moderate growth. The TSX will end 2010 at or about 16,000.

We’ll talk again then.