2009 YEAR END REVIEW OF MARKETS: COMFORTABLY NUMB

“To the governor of this bank: Never forget that it was created to serve the employer and the workingman, the producer and the consumer, the importer and the exporter, the creditor and debtor; all in theinterest of the country as a whole.”

A reminder written by Benjamin Strong, first Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (1913-1928), and always kept in the top drawer of his desk

Markets in 2009 began with trepidation during the first quarter, and finished with a sustained recovery inasset prices for the remainder of the year. Central banks printed, and governments around the world borrowed, unprecedented amounts of money which they injected into their economies to preventcatastrophic collapse. As one of our favorite global investment strategists commented, it was the same asadministering financial heroin to a stricken victim or strung out addict. And while markets are presentlycomfortably numb from these injections and attempting to recover, the real challenge will be to managethe withdrawal. Ultimately, the overleveraged economies will struggle to regulate the dosage as theyoperate in a stupor of slack demand and oversupply. Healthier, younger economies should be able todistance themselves from these recovering addicts.Summary returns for 2010 are reviewed below:

2009 Last 3 Years Last 5 Years Last 10 YearsS&P 500 Total Return

26.46% -15.95% 2.09% -9.12%

Value Line Composite

36.77% -32.51% -23.60% -28.32%

MSCI EAFE

32.46% -15.80% 21.78% 16.97%

MSCI Emerging Markets

79.02% 17.16% 108.99% 161.95%

Citigroup 5 Year T-Note

-1.39% 24.06% 27.25% 79.93%

Barclays Five Year Muni

7.41% 19.46% 24.62% 66.55%

DJ UBS Commodity Index

18.91% -11.06% 10.17% 99.12%

CPI

2.91% 7.20% 13.68% 28.54%

All returns are cumulative, not annualized

Stocks recovered much of their value versus bonds, but are still well off their highs of 2007-8. The “lostdecade” of the “oughts” produced a negative return for US stocks (S&P 500 / Value Line Composite), butwas a winner for emerging markets and hard assets like commodities, despite the epochal crash of 2008.

Macroeconomic Outlook

GDP bottomed during the first quarter of 2009, and is trying to recover. Q3 GDP was up at an annualizedrate of 2.2%:

This is a shockingly low rebound given all the government stimulus applied. What is the “something else”that will get things moving again? The classic tool of cheap money (0% interest rates for savers) isimpotent. Government spending through TARP, cash for clunkers etc. is a short term, finite exercise. Ourview is that an overleveraged economy must reduce its debt burden through increased savings over a verylong adjustment process to restart demand. This basic economic principle means consumption willdecline until a point of equilibrium is reached, and the accumulated savings will then provide fuel forreignition. Therefore, investors should expect lower normalized GDP growth. We look for a low 2%trendline versus the 3.5% that has characterized much of the last three decades.On the inflation front, CPI fell throughout the year but has recently rebounded to annualized rate of 1.8%.

Concerns about deflation seem to have fallen by the wayside, as most prognosticators fret over animminent eruption of inflation due to the massive expansion of the US money supply since 2008.However, until that excess money gets used (credit expansion occurs; i.e. loans are made), there will not bemuch pressure on prices. (In technical terms, until the money multiplier rises to increase velocity, theeconomy will limp along.) This very important measure is illustrated below:

As we have long held, credit is the grease that lubricates the economy and causes increases in realdemand. The current abysmal state of the lending market is shown below:Government spending remains the primary motor for the US economy. With the midterm election comingup and the Federal Reserve likely to delay any withdrawal of monetary stimulus (i.e. short rates will stay at0% and continued purchases of mortgages and other impaired assets will continue), the governmentremains the only source of “organic” growth in the US economy. This public sector “demand push”command style economy is reasserting itself into the personal income structure, as transfer payments toindividuals from the government (i.e. welfare checks) move sharply higher:Unemployment remains highly problematic, and is sure to become a political hot potato in the 2010 re-election campaigns. The latest jobs report (“non-farm payrolls”) was down 85,000, but is being touted asan aberration in an otherwise improving job market. The statistics suggest otherwise. The “household”survey, which reflects small business activity, showed a loss of 589,000 jobs in December. The “U6Report”, which includes those discouraged workers who are no longer seeking employment, recorded anational unemployment rate of 17.3%. Jobless benefits have been extended for the fourth time to a record27 weeks.