Charles Gradante is one of Wall Street’s most sought after opinion leaders on matters of the stock market, the global economy, hedge fund strategy and asset allocation. He is the Co-Founder of Hennessee Group (www.HennesseeGroup.com) and he is shown on Bloomberg TV’s “Taking Stock” program with host, Brian Sullivan. Noteworthy highlights from this particular interview include: – Very negitive technicals at the start of 2008 portend a dismal market for the balance of 2008 – Technical breakout to the downside expected in the market – Double top broke 80 week moving average on the DOW indicating that the market was bearish – Short interest between January 2007 and December 2007 was up 30% indicating negative market sentiment by hedge funds – Hennessee Hedge Fund Index outperformed by 8% the S&P 500, which was the largest spread since 1987, indicating a continued downward trend for the markets and further confirming the fact that hedge funds protect to the downside – Gradante predicts early in 2008 that gold may be a good short term and long term investment – the Fed needs to lower interest rates to ignite the economy, but lower rates are inflationary, presenting a double edged sword, with lower rates possibly leading to stagflation – The next big shoe to drop are credit default swaps – The bond default rate to increase dramatically in 2008 and 2009 – Money center banks in trouble with credit default swap exposures. They were net sellers of CDS’s to owners of bonds and …