Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Grantham's 4Q Letter

Jeremy Grantham is one of the best living investors and his 4Q 2008 investor letter is a must read. I still remember in 2006 & 2007 when the market was flying up and he said, "This is largest Bear Market rally of all time," and that people should avoid it. Well, he looked crazy at the time but he has been proven correct. In last month's letter, he has this doozy:

"It was often said that the Japanese should have bitten the bullet as the U.S. did in its S&L crisis, taking a quick hit rather than dragging out the pain. How superficial and self-congratulatory those comments seem now. Faced with our own credit crisis, we discover there is no easy cure – the bullet turns out to be a grenade, which doesn’t fi t as easily into the mouth."