This Good Question comes from reader, Kristen, just in time for party season: I’m throwing my first holiday party for some close friends and colleagues soon and was wondering if any readers or contributors at The Kitchn know of a great holiday punch to make for my guests. Thank you!
KNOXVILLE — Florence Graves was born in India and received her undergraduate degree in economics from Bombay University. She lived in Dubai for 25 years before immigrating to Tennessee. She’s run a restaurant and a landscaping business, worked as a sous chef at Bonefish Grill and is now the executive assistant to the dean in UT’s College of Architecture and Design.
But her passion is cooking, and her dreams are to market a line of fusion sauces and launch her own restaurant chain.
Graves is one of 16 food enthusiasts — college students, retirees and working professionals in a variety of fields, including some already in the food service industry — who graduated Wednesday, Dec. 2, from the Culinary Institute at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
This is the fifth class to graduate from the institute since it started in October 2007.
“This is no ordinary graduation, because the students had to prepare their ‘final exam,’ which entailed the development and execution of the graduation meal,” said John Antun, founding director of the Culinary Institute and assistant professor of hotel, restaurant and tourism management. Antun, a certified executive chef with a doctorate in higher education administration, has spent more than 40 years in the hospitality industry and opened and operated four successful restaurants in the New York metropolitan area.
“The 16 graduating students worked on designing an elaborate culinary experience for their guests of the graduation and their instructors. This gave them the opportunity to not only prepare a fine meal, but also to show off to their friends and families,” Antun said.
The Culinary Institute at the University of Tennessee provides students with professional culinary instruction. Appealing to food service professionals and food hobbyists alike, the 10-month program offered by the Department of Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Management of the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, covers topics including safety and sanitation, the art of tasting, knife skills and ice sculpting.
Students who complete the program receive a credentialing Certificate in Culinary Arts and the ServSafe Food Service Sanitation certification, valid for five years.
“I always had a passion for creating and experiencing different kinds of foods,” Graves said. “Coming from India and having lived in the Middle East, I felt very comfortable with Asian and Middle Eastern food. However, I wanted to learn about Western cuisine. I have an entrepreneurial bent and I thought this would be a valuable course to take if I want to have a food business of my own.”
With her new certifications, Graves has big plans.
“I have some ideas, one of which is commercializing fusion-type sauces,” she said. “My dream, however, is to own a chain of healthy multi-national fusion fast-food places!”
Graves might even get some help from her husband, Tom Graves, director of operations for the Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the College of Business Administration.
Here are the newest graduates from the Culinary Institute:
For more information about the Culinary Institute, see http://culinary.utk.edu/.
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, [email protected])
Some men with low levels of vitamin D in their blood are at particularly high risk of developing heart disease and weakened bones that can lead to osteoporosis, researchers report.
In a study of more than 1,000 men, those with low levels of both vitamin D and the sex hormone estrogen were at significantly increased risk of having cardiovascular disease, says study head Erin Michos, MD, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins.
“They were also at dramatically increased risk of osteopenia,” or bone loss that can lead to osteoporosis, she says.
“Our results suggest that vitamin D supplements, which are already prescribed to treat osteoporosis, may also be useful in preventing heart disease,” Michos tells WebMD.
Men with low levels of vitamin D and testosterone, on the other hand, were not at heightened risk for heart disease or osteopenia.
Role of Estrogen and Vitamin D
The new findings build on previous studies showing that low levels of vitamin D and estrogen, a sex hormone found in differing amounts in men and women, are independent risk factors for developing plaque-laden arteries and weakened bones. Read more…
We’re actually starting to put together a trend of jobless claims numbers below 500k. No doubt this is at least one good sign on the unemployment front.
—-
WASHINGTON (AP) — The tally of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits fell unexpectedly for the fifth straight week, a hopeful sign that the job market is slowly improving.
The Labor Department says first-time claims for unemployment insurance dropped by 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 457,000, the lowest total since the week of Sept. 6, 2008.
Wall Street economists expected an increase, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
A Labor Department analyst says the closing of state unemployment offices for last week’s Thanksgiving holiday was responsible for some of the decline.
The number of people claiming benefits for more than a week rose by 28,000 to 5.5 million. Analysts had expected a decline.
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There was a lot of reasonable concern earlier this year when a much needed federal shield law proposal appeared to ignore participatory journalists and only cover those employed by major media companies. After people complained about this we were relieved to see Senators Chuck Schumer and Arlen Specter change the bill to cover participatory journalism as well. As they realized such a law should be about protecting acts of journalism not some arbitrary definition of journalists.
Unfortunately, it looks like some other Senators disagree. Karl Bode alerts us to the news that Senators Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin are specifically trying to limit the bill to only covering major media journalists. It’s hard to see any rationale for such a move, but it does seem rather obnoxious. One of the fundamental points of a strong media is the ability to protect their sources. Without that, it’s that much harder for the media to actually hold anyone accountable, since sources will be more afraid to reveal important information. Why would Senators Feinstein and Durbin be so against protecting the process of journalism?
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Filed under: Sedan, Europe, Plants/Manufacturing, Mercedes-Benz, Luxury
Fluctuations and disparities in currency exchange rates have grown to become a significant factor in determining where foreign automakers in particular assemble their vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is among those carmakers most cognizant of these effects, and it has been assembling select models in the United States to meet local demands. Now the German automaker has announced that, for the next generation of its popular C-Class sedan due in 2014, partial production will shift to its assembly plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the M-Class, R-Class and GL-Class crossovers are already built.
The shift in production – which is set to comprise no more than one-fifth of global C-Class production – will not only help offset currency rates, but also afford greater flexibility in meeting local customer demand. The move is expected to further upset Germany’s automotive workforce, which has grown restless in the wake of General Motors’ collapsed sale of Opel.
In addition to the partial shift to Alabama, German production of the remaining four-fifths of C-Class production is set to switch places with the SL-Class roadster, the former moving from Sindelfingen to Bremen and the latter vice-versa. Full details in the press release after the jump.
[Source: Mercedes-Benz]
Continue reading Confirmed: Mercedes to shift some production of next-gen C-Class to Alabama
Confirmed: Mercedes to shift some production of next-gen C-Class to Alabama originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Things are as messy as ever in the music streaming business yet most people are surprisingly determined in pushing forward. MySpace is now launching its Music service in the UK after being available in the US and recently in Australia and New Zealand. The free streaming service will offer millions of songs, though no exact figure was provided, and tens of thousands videos taking Spotify, which is very popular in the country, head on.
“The UK is renowned for its passionate and committed music fans, and MySpace has had a rich history with its artist community. Acts like Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen embraced MySpace from the outset, and are now synonymous with the site. I’m thrilled to announce MySpace Music is now officially available to all artists and music fans in the UK,” MySpace Music president Courtney Hold writes.
MySpace Music will be completely free in the UK with an ad-supported revenue model. There will be ads in between songs as all the advertising will be on the site itself. Of course, this is true for most websites in the world so it’s not exactly surprising. However, Spotify, which will likely be its greatest competitor in the UK, does insert audio ads between tracks in the free version of the service so this may very well be MySpace’s biggest draw.
MySpace has support from … (read more)
An analyst report from RBS examines how investors are going absolutely bonkers for precious metal ETFs:
RBS: The strong price gains seen in November across the precious metals have brought with them fresh investor interest in the sector. At end November all four families of precious metal ETFs stood at record highs in both volume and value terms. But the net speculative long positions on COMEX/NYMEX also stand at near record levels for all of the precious metals.
Here’s the breakdown:
Gold ETF holdings rose by 24t (1%) in November to a record 1,762t. Holdings are up by 573t (48%) YTD. The value of gold ETF holdings rose by $8.5bn (15%) to a record $66.6bn as the gold price rose by $136/oz (13%). Total ETF value has increased by $34bn (101%) YTD. In euro terms the gold price rose by 11% mom as the US dollar finished the month 2% weaker against the euro. The euro value of gold holdings rose by 13% in November, ending the month at €44.5bn.
Silver ETF holdings rose by 787t (7%) in November to a record 11,882t. ETF value rose by $1bn (17%) as the silver price rose by 9% mom in US dollars and 8% in euros. YTD holdings have advanced by 3,628t (44%) and the value of holdings has increased by 142% in US dollars and 125% in euros.
Platinum ETF holdings rose by 1.7t (9%) in November to a record 20.4t and the value of holdings rose by 9% in US dollars and 7% in euros. YTD platinum holdings have advanced by 121% and their value has increased by 255% in US dollars and 231% in euros.
Palladium ETF holdings rose by 1.3t (4%) in November to a record 35.3t and their value advanced by 15% in US dollars and 14% in euros. YTD palladium holdings have risen by 72% and their value has increased by 237% in US dollars and 214% in euros.
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Forest Shomberg walked free from a Wisconsin prison last month after serving six years for a crime he did not commit. Thanks to post-conviction DNA testing and increasing awareness of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard announced that the county will not retry the case. Every time I hear about people like Forest, I have deeply mixed emotions. As the first death-row inmate to be exonerated by DNA evidence. I know firsthand what it is like to spend time in prison for a crime I did not commit.
Forest overcame the longest of odds to win his freedom in a system that was convinced of his guilt. Imagine the patience and persistence that took. Imagine the hardships he endured being isolated from friends and family. Imagine never knowing if the truth would come out. Somehow, Forest and his loved ones found the strength to persevere. For this I am extremely happy.
But exonerations like Forest’s are also deeply unsettling to me because they demonstrate the very serious problems confronting our criminal justice system. The fact is we still get it wrong far more often than we should. Some of the same errors that caused me to spend almost nine years in prison for a crime I did not commit also led to Forest’s wrongful conviction.
In both cases, an innocent man was arrested because he looked similar to a sketch compiled by police from eyewitness accounts. In both cases, an innocent man was convicted based on eyewitness testimony. And in both cases, an innocent man went to prison while the real perpetrator went unpunished.
Initially, the judge in the case did not let the defense present expert testimony about the unreliability of eyewitness identification. Only after post-conviction DNA testing revealed that Forest’s DNA did not match the DNA on the victim’s clothes did the powerful evidence about the factors that can lead witnesses to misidentify a perpetrator, including police sketches, seem to make a difference.
Fortunately, the State of Wisconsin has since developed model procedures for police sketches and conducting lineups. Like the recommendations in The Justice Project’s publication, Eyewitness Identification: A Policy Review, the Wisconsin Department of Justice recommends that sketches be used “cautiously, if at all,” and that police use sequential, rather than simultaneous, lineups and photo arrays. Because eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, every state should enact these procedures to make sure that people like Forest and people like me do not have to endure the tragedy of being imprisoned for someone else’s crime.
We must take the necessary steps to prevent eyewitness misidentification. States can implement simple, common sense best practices to protect against eyewitness misidentifications. Forest Shomberg’s story and my own story are only two of the many cases of wrongful conviction based on eyewitness identification that prove such reforms are desperately needed.
A warm chewy bagel smeared with cream cheese is one of our absolute favorite treats in the whole wide world. This recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François shows us how to make an easy and healthy version right at home!
While they continued to lose money mostly due to inventory write-downs and other charges, they are becoming increasingly optimistic about the future housing market.
Why?
Because they’ve noticed that their key customers, wealthy Americans, are doing just fine, and have a very bright future.
They also say houses are more affordable than they’ve been in a very long time. So perhaps it’s time you upgraded your life with one of their latest models…
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On this day, 15 years ago, the Japanese saw the launch of the first PlayStation. Ahh yes, December 3rd, 1994, huge day for gaming. While the younger generation wouldn’t know how gaming was back then, there was a time when all
Bristol, Acre Resources
Sustain are an integrated sustainability solutions provider strategically focused on solving the energy carbon equation. Our goal is to design, develop and deliver the solutions that will meet our clients’ needs as we help them on their journey towards a sustainable future.
With expertise across the sustainability space and by employing a partnership approach, Sustain are able to offer their clients an integrated solution to carbon management.
As a Project Manager you will play an instrumental role in the ongoing delivery of innovative carbon reduction programmes. Primarily you will deliver Project Management services and administer Community Energy Saving Programmes (CESP) across the UK, monitoring and reporting on project progress. In addition you will be expected to:
– Project manage the installation of energy efficiency measures and low carbon technologies
– Liaise with the client and project team to set the project scope, ensuring delivery on time and within budget
– Monitor and report on project progress. Identifying any potential issues that arise during the project process and deal with these in a timely and efficient manner
– Develop and maintain strong working relationships with clients/stakeholders in the public and private sector
– Compile financial and progress reports for internal and external publication
– Coordinating the activity of subcontractors
The successful candidate will have a proven track record of managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects. Further skills and experience required:
– Project management experience, ideally within the sustainability or built environment sectors
– Experience balancing conflicting priorities and delivering projects to customers on time and within budget.
– Excellent communication and influencing skills
– Being a qualified Prince 2 Practitioner (or having a similar qualification) would be a distinct advantage
– Relevant degree (or equivalent) in the environmental or built environment sectors is desirable
– Evidence of a strong commitment to environmental and social causes of concern
If you have a background in Project Management and are as passionate about the environment as we are, have energy to succeed and a real ‘can do’ attitude then please apply today or contact James Hobbs on +44(0) 203 008 4699 for further information.
Sustain have engaged Acre, their preferred recruitment partner, to manage the recruitment of their Project Manager.
Filed under: Car Buying, Lexus, Toyota
According to the experts-of-such-things at Kelley Blue Book, the average vehicle will only retain about 35 percent of its original value after the initial five-year ownership period, often making depreciation the greatest expense incurred by drivers over that time period. That’s a hefty chunk of change to be sure, so a vehicle’s anticipated resale value should be of prime concern when shopping for your next car or truck.
Since 2003, KBB has published its Best Resale Value Awards, which seek to inform consumers of projected resale value for any particular model after five years and 75,000 miles worth of service. Considering its historic reputation for quality, it comes as little surprise that Toyota takes home the trophy as the brand with the best projected resale value and that its subsidiary Lexus grabs the award in the luxury category. We have to wonder, though, how the company’s many current woes might damage its perceived value down the line.
Making up the Top 10 Models for 2010 are the Audi A5, BMW M3, Chevrolet Corvette and Camaro SS, Honda CR-V, Mini Cooper and Clubman along with the Prius, RAV4 and Tacoma from Toyota. See here for a more comprehensive list and make the jump for the official press release.
[Source: KBB]
Continue reading Toyota tops Kelley Blue Book best resale value awards
Toyota tops Kelley Blue Book best resale value awards originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The earlier you light up your cigarettes, the higher the levels of cotinine, a by-product of nicotine you’ll have in your blood, regardless of how many cigarettes you have throughout the day, say the results of a study recently published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Researchers looked at 252 healthy people daily cigarette smokers, with an emphasis on their urges to smoke and when they lit up their first cigarette of the day. The researchers then measured the cotinine levels in the smokers’ blood. what they found was that that the range was extremely variable – from between 16 ng/mL (mostly among smokers who waited at least a half hour before the first cigarette) to 1180 ng/mL (mostly among smokers who lit up not long after waking).
It’s not yet understood why this happens, but researchers may now be able to use this information to work on various approaches to smoking cessation tools and techniques.
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Image: PhotoXpress.com
Post from: Blisstree
Course 3 of Wilton’s Cake Decorating Series covers some more designing with buttercream icing, royal icing and fondant. I was eagerly waiting for this course thinking that dealing with fondant would be easier than decorating with the other icings. I couldn’t have been any wronger. Fondant is very high maintenance and at least it was very difficult for me to handle. It’s going to take a lot of practice for me before I can decorate something decent. Taste wise too, I prefer buttercream icing to fondant.
The following were covered in Course 3:
For everything about how to decorate with Fondant check here for exhaustive details.
Coming to the cake recipe which I used for the class, I found it on the box of Ener-G Egg Replacer. It’s a recipe for an egg free Victoria Sponge Cake. I made 2 changes to the original recipe. Used barley flour instead of all purpose flour and canola oil instead of vegetable shortening.
Yield: One 8-inch cake
1 Preheat the oven to 375F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square/round pan with parchment paper and grease it with non stick cooking spray.
2 In a large bowl sift the barley flour and mix together the remaining dry ingredients.
3 Add the oil and mix well. Add the water and flavor and mix for another 2 minutes.
4 Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5 Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Then remove the parchment paper from the sides of the pan and slowly invert the pan to remove the cake. Transfer the cake to the wire rack and let it cool completely before frosting.
The sweetness was right. If you are going to frost the cake, the quantity of sugar in the recipe is okay otherwise I think adding another 2-3 tablespoons of sugar should be fine for those with sweet tooth.
Do I recommend baking this cake? Well it depends on the individual taste. In our family we are trying to include more whole grains and in general to eat more healthy. So we don’t mind the denseness. Especially me baking quite often I cannot be using all purpose flour so frequently. I’m not lying when I tell that everybody in my family liked this cake. I think our taste buds have accustomed to the texture and flavor of whole grains.
It’s not all times that whole grain flours give perfect results while baking. So if you want to use whole barley flour and also want a cake to suit everyone’s taste buds I would suggest you to bake the vegan barley chocolate cake instead of this sponge cake.
If you are looking for a vegan sponge cake recipe to bake for some occasion like a birthday, anniversary etc I would suggest you to try the exact same recipe but with all purpose flour as mentioned in the original recipe. I too am going to try it and will post my findings here when I’m done.
Ideally, you want to fund yourself in a currency that’s going down, so that when it comes time to pay back your lender, you’re giving back less money than you borrowed. It’s the essence of the carry trade, and it’s why many believe that the relentlessly declining dollar is the basis for a new, bubble-making carry trade.
The old standby, the Japanese Yen, has been a disaster, as it’s surged to a 14-year high.
But Morgan Stanley is giving the greenlight to start borrowing in yen:
We have been yen bulls for an extended period. Now that we have reached our long-standing target of ¥85, we think that the risk-reward for holding long JPY positions is less interesting. Indeed, there are a number of factors which suggest that it’s a good time to book some profit in USD shorts and begin to use the JPY as the funding currency.
The roadmap for the 2009 FX market can easily be captured by the “punish the printer” theme. The most aggressive printers, namely the US and UK, have seen their currencies underperform, particularly against those currencies where the risk of printing was always close tozero — namely Australia, New Zealand and most EM countries such as Brazil. This theme has pushedv aluations to an extreme in most cases.
While the UK and US still have issues with respect to successfully reversing their balance-sheet expansion, and for that reason we still think the dollar and sterling will struggle to fully reverse this year’s losses until it is clear they can successfully exit their QE programs, the level of the yen on a relative basis suggests to us that it is a good time to substitute some dollar shorts for yen
shorts. Playing a reversal of the “punish the printer” theme is perhaps one of the biggest currency
opportunities available in 2010, and we will continue to monitor it accordingly.
As can be seen in Exhibit 1, a basket of long USD and GBP against EUR and JPY is at fairly interesting levels for those inclined to fade the heavily populated “punish the printer” theme amongst the world’s four most liquid currencies. If we are right about USD/JPY, then this could start to turn now, especially as the EUR is around 30% expensive against both sterling and the dollar.
Why do we think USD/JPY is close to a bottom?
We think that Japanese authorities will want to resist yen strength around the ¥85 area, given that a break of this level sets up a test of all-time lows in USD/JPY around ¥80. Japan has not intervened in the currency market since 16 March 2004, not resisting the recent bout of dollar weakness. And despite risks to the domestic economy from the strong currency, they have kept to the spirit of the G20’s desire to deal with global imbalances. This has also been at a time when China’s renminbi has
been linked to a very weak dollar. Japan has been a good global citizen, but after this week’s surprise
announcement of further liquidity measures by the Bank of Japan, it is perhaps an early indication that they are getting increasingly concerned about their economic prospects at a time when other central banks are thinking more about their exit strategies.
This might also imply that if the yen were to strengthen further the probability of intervention would rise quite sharply. Coordinated intervention cannot be ruled out either, given that Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke has recently talked about a strong dollar being a source of global stability and that the Fed is attentive to the implications of changes in the value of the dollar and will formulate policy to guard against risks to their dual mandate. The recent Fed minutes also referred to the link between the dollar and inflation. There are many countries which are currently unhappy with dollar
weakness (strength in their own currencies) or the low level of the federal funds rate such as the Eurozone, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Brazil, Hong Kong, China and other Asian countries. A general stabilization of the dollar would suit everyone’s needs and help to contain any inflationary pressure in the US.
Source: Morgan Stanley: FX Impulse: Time to fund in Yen instead of Dollars?
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Google is plowing ahead with Street View despite all the opposition from several concerned parties and it’s a good thing too, the feature is quickly becoming a huge repository as more and more cities and countries are added to the list. The program just got a huge boost with a bunch of new locations added in one fell swoop, fun places like SeaWorld and other theme parks, Stonehenge, nine new cities in Canada and an entire country, Singapore, which we covered yesterday.
“Today’s update to Street View is a whale of a launch — literally! We’ve added imagery gathered by our Trike for several special attractions we’ve partnered with in the United States, including the SeaWorld parks. Of course, that includes photos of SeaWorld’s biggest star, Shamu,” Julie Sohn from Content Partnerships Team at Street View wrote.
Continuing in the same line as Google’s cheesy play-on-words, the new SeaWorld photos are bound to make a big splash – literally. Virtual visitors will be able to move around the parks and even view the dolphins in mid air. Three SeaWorld locations are now available in Street View, but they’re not the only theme parks to be added. Images from Hersheypark in Pennsylvania were also part of the update and rollercoaster enthusiasts can check out all the rides before actually v… (read more)
Stocks have jumped about 70% from the March lows. As we’ve noted, they have also blasted past most estimates of fair value, which are generally around 900 on the S&P 500 on a cyclically-adjusted price-earnings ratio (see professor Robert Shiller’s chart below),
London economist Andrew Smithers says valuations are even more extreme. In a recent interview with Kate Welling of Weeden & Co., he put the overvaluation at 40%:
Would you mind running through how you arrive at that 40% overpriced valuation?
Certainly. The EPS on the S&P 500 for the 12 months to June 20, 2009 were $7.51, making the P/E with the index at 1073 (when I ran the numbers on Oct. 13) 143, which was 10 times the long-term average P/E, using data which start in 1871.
Which superficially sounds like a lot more than 40% overvalued —
Yes, but that doesn’t mean the market is horribly expensive, because profits have recently been
quite depressed. Equally of course, though this point is often ignored, claims that the market is selling at some low future multiple would not show that the market today is cheap.
In order to assess value, it is necessary either to calculate the level at which the EPS would be if profits were neither depressed nor elevated, or to use a metric of value which does not depend on profits. The cyclically adjusted P/E (CAPE) normalizes EPS by averaging them over 10 years [See chart above]. It thus follows the first of those two possible methods. Using even longer time periods has advantages, particularly as EPS have been exceptionally volatile in recent years —and using longer time periods raises the current measured degree of overvaluation.
The other methodology we use measures stock market value without reference to profits: the q ratio. It
compares the market capitalization of companies with their net worth, also adjusted to current
prices. The validity of both of these approaches can be tested and is robust under testing —and they produce results that agree. Currently, both q and CAPE are saying that the U.S. stock market is
about 40% overvalued.
Of course, today’s overvaluation doesn’t tell you much about what stocks will do next week, next year, or even the next 5-10 years. As the chart above shows, before the 2007 market crash, stocks were overvalued for the better part of 20 years–and observing that didn’t help you make money. On the contrary, it usually got you fired.
What today’s valuation does suggest is that stocks are priced to return a bit less than average over the next decade, perhaps 3% real per year (inflation adjusted), as compared to the 6%-7% average.
Today’s valuations also suggest that stocks may have gotten way ahead of themselves, especially in light of the structural problems that will continue to bog down the economy.
As the chart above illustrates, every one of the prior mega-busts in the past century has been followed by a “trough” in which the cyclically adjusted PE ratio hit the high single-digits. We didn’t quite make it there in March (the P/E bottomed around 12X), although we did get close.
This, combined with what is likely to be a decade of deleveraging, consumer retrenchment, and sluggish growth as we work off our debt binge, suggests that we still yet might hit that single-digit low before we take off on another secular bull market again. This could be achieved either through another market crash, or a prolonged period of backing and filling as earnings growth gradually reduces the long-term PE ratio (this is what happened in the 1970s).
On the other hand, it is possible that that enormous stimulus and zero interest rates over the past two years will produce that “v-shaped” recovery. At this point, given the extent of the recent rally, it would presumably have to be one heck of a “V” to send stocks soaring from here. But the last eight months have already made idiots out of almost everyone.
See: The Stock Market Rally That Turned Gurus Into Fools
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In between gorging on caramels and sugary holiday cookies, it’s nice to have one or two treats that veer toward the other end of the spectrum. These pfeffernusse cookies with candied citrus peel and a dash of pepper fit the bill quite nicely!
