MORE SURPRISES

Doug Kass out with his list of surprises for 2008 on the TSCM sites but before pondering those, I decided to take a look at last year's list. Not sure why folks say he hit on 20% - let me know where I am wrong.

1- TXN and CAT attempt to go private in deals led by private equity - NO;

2- Robert Rubin becomes CEO of Salomon/Smith Barney after C breaks up the company- NO;

3- Housing market appears to stabilize in early 2007 based on misleading gov't stats- NO;

4- A dumping of homes/quantum increase in unsold inventory/dramatic drop of prices- NO;

5- Foreclosures rise to 3,000,000 homes - NO;

6- Hedge funds bite the dust due to credit problems and JPM has a $10B derivative loss-NO;

7- Congress announces a series of hearings on the derivative industry- NO;

8-Commodity prices collapse- NO;

9-Corporate profits end 2007 virtually flat- NO;

10-Equity market volatility rises "exponentially" and the SPX routinely experiences 2% moves- EH;

11- SPX ends the year at 1,250- NO;

12- FIDO announces a short equity product- NO;

13- University's and endowments reduce exposure to private equity- NO;

14- ESL (Eddy Lampert) buys a large entertainment industry company- NO;

15- Cyberterrorism - NO;

16- Hillary/RUDY don't run and Newt/GORE do- NO;

19- GOOG approaches a price of $650 and then takes a large hit- NO;

20- Saddam Hussein assassinated in jail and Osama Bin Laden found dead- NO;

21- Corruption in Russia hits the emerging markets- NO;

22-Hedge funds reduce fees and 50% disappear- NO;

23-Equities demand severely reduced- NO;

24- Maria Bartiromo joins THE VIEW- NO (unfortunately).

25- Cramer cancelled- NO

Not sure what happened to 17 and 18 as they have mysteriously disappeared. Maybe they were 2 that were in the ballpark.