David Fuller's view Assuming the information is accurate - I am not in a position to verify it but it came from an institutional source and was attributed to JPM, although there is no name mentioned in the report - it speaks volumes. Eoin thinks it may have come from a hedge fund sales desk.

Whatever, our steroid-induced recovery to date is a far cry from the halcyon days of 1975 and 1982. No surprise there. What is a surprise is that with the exception of housing, it is not materially worse than 1991 and 2001. That may be of little consolation given the amount of QE required to achieve a very patchy and modest recovery to date.

However, the corporate data including Manufacturing Industrial Production, ISM-Manufacturing Index and Real Core Capital Goods Shipments is fully competitive. Most significantly for investors is the final graph showing Real Adjusted Corporate Profits. To date, this is matching 1975 and 1982 and is streets ahead of 2001 and especially 1991.

Conclusion - US sentiment regarding equities is much too bearish. The reason, as I have said over and over - US multinational companies which had not been all but destroyed by their pensions and other entitlement programmes, such as automobile manufacturers, or had not self-destructed like banks - went into survival mode early in 2008. Today, many of these companies have strong balance sheets. Those with global franchises are ideally positioned to prosper in many rapidly growing regions of the globe.