Wall Street bear gets testy

When a widely followed economist says things are really bad and they turn out to be reasonably good, it's time to take out those tap shoes. David Rosenberg was dancing away in his daily investors note (via Business Insider), first taking a shot at an "obscure" analyst who took a shot at him and his methodology in Barron's, and then insisting that the little people are being duped into believing that the current rally is for real.

After a monstrous 80%-plus rally from the March 2009 lows (over such a short time frame, and the most pronounced bounce since 1955) this market has become seriously overextended in our view. Meanwhile, we have practically every market pundit extrapolating the recent trend into the future because that is the easy thing to do.

[CUT]

Meanwhile, the masses only see the returns, they do not see the risks that are nearly invisible to the naked eye. But we see the risks. We assess them; we measure them, and we benchmark the returns against them.

It's worth noting that back in August Rosenberg told CNBC that the U.S. economy was "virtually certain" to suffer a double-dip recession. Well, anything is possible, but right now the prospect of contraction seems quite unlikely. And yet his comments this week makes it sound as if he had it right all along.