Gartman Raises the Crash Alert Flag

Dennis Gartman is a salty market veteran who has forgotten more about trading than most people will ever know. His daily newsletter, a must read on Wall St., had an ominous message this morning which we have excerpted below:

We do not make the following statement readily, nor lightly, but we are making it here nonetheless: We are witnessing a watershed shift of sentiment in the global capital markets that shall be with us for some very long while; shall guide us as to how we structure positions for a very long while, and shall cause immeasurable damage to many markets, many funds (hedge and mutual!) and many individuals that shall be felt for years into the future. Our tongue-in-cheek admonition that “there is never one cockroach” is going to become rather too well known and too often repeated in the coming days and weeks as the world becomes more and more and more aware of the fact that the problems felt by Bear Stearns several weeks ago were but the very tip of a very large and very cold iceberg. The contagion is indeed spreading from one area of the mortgage market to another, and before this cycle of liquidation has run its course it will spread to the better… indeed to the very best… names on Wall Street, Lombard Street, Bay Street et al.

Scary stuff. You can subscribe and read the whole thing at www.thegartmanletter.com