Year of the Hyena

As we stumble into the new year, I pause to reflect on the foul year of our Lord 2008. With equity markets down almost 40% and Treasury rates near zero, to label these circumstances a bear market seems insulting. Indeed, the terms bull and bear markets are strangely anachronistic. We need some new animals in our zoo of descriptors. I dub 2008 the Year of the Hyena. To atone for our sins of the recent past, market forces moved inexorably from corporation to corporation and asset class to asset class like a marauding pack of hyenas. Asset prices tumbled. Ah yes, the circle of life... The market doing its job in exposing and removing the excesses that inevitably present themselves. The hyena's work will be done in the fullness of time. Meanwhile, the hyena laments "so much carrion, so little time."