Shilling: U.S. debt better investment than others

According to Shilling, it’s the best of the worst:

According to A. Gary Shilling America’s economy is “the best of a bad lot”. This thinking isn’t going to make anyone break into a USA chant, but Shilling thinks it will be good enough to keep treasuries moving higher for the foreseeable future. “The U.S. is the ultimate safe haven in the world” he says. It’s a statement at once reassuring and horrifying for anyone paying attention to the domestic economy.

The author of “The Age of Deleveraging” and long-time bond bull notes that Europe is going to hell in a hand-basket and China is slamming on the breaks, leaving U.S. bonds “very attractive”, particularly the 30-year. When asked why anyone would buy a bond paying 4.2% Shilling says he simply couldn’t care less what the yield is as long as it’s going down. The genially gloomy investor is expecting yields to drop all the way to 3%, a move that would spell more than attractive returns for bondholders.

Of course you can’t get excited about relative returns without asking relative to what other asset classes. Having already dismissed the rest of the global economy the obvious question is whether or not stocks can continue to levitate in the face of stubborn unemployment and anemic growth. In short, no. In longer form Shilling dismisses the bullish notion of a second half recovery. Even if the economy grows at the anemic sub-2% rate of late, and Shilling thinks GDP will be much worse, stocks are likely to start missing even low-balled estimates in Q’s 3 and 4. Companies lowering estimates and missing earnings forecasts is not traditionally a bull market make.