Barton Biggs sees little reason to be bearish

Barton Biggs, who trimmed bullish bets in September before U.S. stocks posted the biggest monthly gain since 1991, said that though he doesn't want to be fully invested in equities, “it's hard to get really bearish.” “Except for Europe, the rest of the world economy is doing pretty well,” the hedge fund manager said last week during an interview on Bloomberg Radio. “There's too much bearishness, and equities — particularly U.S. equities and emerging-markets equities — are very cheap relative to fixed income, Treasury bonds, high yield, other financial assets.” His Traxis Global Equity Macro Fund's net long position, a gauge of bullish versus bearish investments, is about 60%, Mr. Biggs said. During a Nov. 21 interview, he said that he cut the figure to less than 40% and might reduce it another 15 percentage points. Mr. Biggs raised the Traxis Global fund's long equity position to 65% after slashing it to 40% in September, he said during an Oct. 17 interview. He then boosted the figure to 80%, he said two weeks later. The S&P 500 dropped five straight months through September before surging 11% in October.