From June of 2008:
"We were one of the investors in the Lehman equity offering...Lehman is not a Bear Stearns situation...Lehman is adequately structured in terms of avoiding a liquidity crisis...We believe we're closer to the bottom than another round of calamity."
And today, as reported by Bloomberg:
“Investors should have 100 percent of investments in equities because of valuations and higher returns than bonds, said Laurence D. Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the world’s largest money manager.
Investors who seek the safety of treasury bonds will have minimal returns and will not be able to meet their needs with the U.S. Federal Reserve expected to keep interest rates low, said Fink, who in 1988 co-founded the New York-based manager with $3.5 trillion of assets. By contrast, equities are trading at the lowest valuations in 20 or 30 years.”
I don’t think the intrinsic value of the market has grown by close to 100% since 2008-2009, so how someone can keep a straight face when saying valuations are the lowest in 20 or 30 years is beyond me, although I’m guessing it has something to do with where his incentives lie.