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By: Mamta Badkar - Aug. 24, 2012, 9:55 AM - Source: Business Insider
Now Gartman, publisher of the Gartman Letter, who cut his long position by half earlier this week, has exited stocks entirely.
In his investor note he writes:
“Stock prices are weak as our proprietary International Index has fallen 62 “points” or 0.8% in the past twenty four hours. Having traded to 7805 earlier this week, this index is now down sharply from its highs… yet; but we are more and more fearful that it shall be, and having cut our long position in half earlier this week, and further having noted how rather badly the market responded to the belief that QE III was on the way, and noting that far too many individual stocks and one or two important international broad indices posted “reversals” earlier this week, we are exiting the other half of our long positions this morning upon receipt of this commentary.
Yes, we do indeed understand that this is a shift in sentiment; and yes we do understand that we had said that stock prices might “melt up,” and yes we further understand that we may look foolish in the weeks ahead for standing down, but call it trader’s intuition or call it what you will, but we wish to move quietly to the sidelines trust we are clear.”
Gartman, who says he is bullish of “simple things”, said earlier this week that the plunge in steel shares had signaled a buy.
But after receiving a report from a friend in a “small but influential broking firm in New York” downgrading the steel industry, Gartman writes, “we’ll ‘bet’ in its favour once again in the not too distant future, but not now given that we are standing down from our previous bullish posture this morning.”
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DENNIS GARTMANEditor and Publisher
The Gartman Letter
Mr. Gartman has been directly involved in the capital markets since August of 1974, after his graduate work at the North Carolina State University. He was an economist for Cotton, Inc. in the early 1970's, analyzing cotton supply/demand in the US textile industry. From there he went to NCNB National Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina where he traded foreign exchange and money market instruments. In the late 70's, Mr. Gartman became the Chief Financial Futures analyst for A.G. Becker & Company in Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Gartman was an independent member of the Chicago Board of Trade until 1984, trading in treasury bond, treasury note and GNMA futures contracts. In 1984, Mr. Gartman moved to Virginia to run the futures brokerage operation for the Sovran Bank, and in 1987 Mr. Gartman began producing The Gartman Letter on a full time basis. He continues to do so today.
Clients of The Gartman Letter, L.C. include many of the leading banks, broking firms, mutual funds, hedge funds, energy trading companies, and grain trading companies. Mr. Gartman has lectured on capital market creation to central banks and finance ministries around the world, and has taught classes for the Federal Reserve Bank's School for Bank Examiners on derivatives. Mr. Gartman served a two-year term as an outside Director of the Kansas City Board of Trade from 2006-2008. He has been a member of the Suffolk Industrial Development Authority since 1998, and now serves on the Investment Committee of the North Carolina State University. Mr. Gartman appears often on CNBC, ROB-TV and Bloomberg television, discussing commodities and the capital markets, and speaks before various associations and trade groups around the world.
