Sign "O" the Times

Consumer spending is down, initial jobless claims are up, and Marc Cuban says we’re in a tech bubble “far worse” the the DotCom Bubble of 2000:

“If we thought it was stupid to invest in public Internet websites that had no chance of succeeding back then, it’s worse today,” he wrote in a blog post detailing the risks facing the current crop of angel investors and crowdfunders (more on that below).

He’s not alone in his fear-mongering. While retail investors are all-in, equity-wise, as are corporations, prophets of doom are counting the moments until the cards fall in the public markets, as well. The thing is, they’ve been counting them for years now. Check out the chart of the day for how long it’s been since we’ve felt a serious pullback. Spoiler alert: almost three years.

Doug Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners, has been anticipating some weakness for a while now, and he’s positioned himself to turn a profit when that day comes.

The difference between the last two bubbles and today is, we weren’t already sitting on $18,000,000,000,000 worth of debt, interest rates weren’t already at zero, labor participation was increasing not decreasing, and the Fed hadn’t already expanded its balance sheet by multiple trillions.

I really want to be wrong about this, but it’s difficult not to fear the worst.