Kass: Don't Buy Big-Caps' Big Move Up

But more interesting was the mix of business growth and direction. The company's North American volumes dropped by 9%, while its international sales grew 23%. The company's aggregate organic growth was negative 2% (Americas, -13%; Europe, +16%; Asia, +35%). Analysts had previously estimated overall organic growth to increase by 5%.

However, that outstanding overseas growth could be coming to an end.

We all know by now that the Achilles' heel of the domestic economy has been housing. The bulls suggest housing might be stabilizing, that the contagion to other parts of the economy has been contained.

The bears, like myself, suggest that housing is in the process of undergoing another leg down, and that the multiplier effect of the accumulated downturn is just beginning to be felt on construction job growth and personal consumption growth.

What is interesting to me is that there are now signs that foreign housing markets might today be where the domestic residential market was one and a half to two years ago: primed for a fall.

As evidence of the potential for a nondomestic bubble bursting, I recently commented on last Monday's and Tuesday's 50% slide in the shares of one of Spain's largest developers, Valencia-based Astroc Mediterraneo. (Other Spanish-based developers, Fomento de Construcciones & Contratas, Acciona and Grupo Immocaral, also faltered.)

The speculation in property development and bank stocks in Spain is symptomatic of the overenthusiasm and bubblelike conditions in many emerging markets, and could spell trouble ahead.

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