This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.

The Perpetual Motion Machine Drives Forward Unabated

RobotTrader's picture




 

Yet another massive floatation of Treasury Bonds sold without a hitch.  Yet another up day for Cramer's Horsemen.  Yet another day of crappy returns for "low risk assets".  More bottle rocket moves in junker stocks like Citigroup.  More safe haven items like gold discarded in favor of NDX stocks with 75 P/E ratios.  What's not to like???

Bernanke, Geithner, LLP has successfully brought the economy out of the abyss, by utilizing the time tested model of "Wash, Rinse, Repeat" cycle of marching up stocks, with periodic shanks to scare people into bonds, spook everyone out of commodities, and eventually re-invigorate "Animal Spirits".

Anyone catch those ads from Interactive Brokers hawking 1.5% margin interest rates?

See what I mean??

Interest rates are still near 40-year lows.  As long as Grandma can only earn a paltry 38 b.p. by investing in 1-year T-Bills, eventually she is going to throw up her hands and get chased into AT & T or Verizon paying over 5.5%.

And meanwhile, most sheeple are still clueless about stocks and are still piling into bond funds.  Wait until they wake up and discover that they could have parlayed that mortgage payment (which they haven't made in over 9 months) by opening up an E-Trade account and making 17% on Citigroup in 3 days.

I guess many of these foreclosed out, house squatters will eventually "take control" and start daytrading again.

Who knows?

Oh, well, a look at some of today's screamers:

Amazing how these restaurant stocks are the hottest item going these days, even with 12% unemployment and $82/crude.

Ruby Tuesday's

Not to be left out, there are many who missed these moves, and are now starting to gun some junkers coming off the lows, like Gamestop:

Hey, maybe instead of "Guitar Hero", perhaps some of the game companies can come up with a video game that simulates hedge fund trading.  They can call it "Wall Street Hero".

LOL...

And with natural gas crashing to multi-year lows, is it any wonder that Wall St. is going to be gunning for thousands of new natural gas stations in the future??

What happened to Peak Oil?  Where are the gas lines?  I don't see any.

Did you miss Pets.com back in the day?

No worries, you can still catch Drugstore.com

Oh, well, just another day in the Gambling Casino.  With Ben assuring us that we will never run out of chips to play with...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- advertisements -

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.
Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:13 | 262304 RobotTrader
RobotTrader's picture

Sheesh...

Check out the reversal in Western Digital today...

Another "Nipple Play"

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:47 | 262439 Chopshop
Chopshop's picture

10 yr anniversary of nasdaq top still gonna be talked about for next two weeks n what better space to trap retail.

i think that's J-Lo before she got nasty ... let's ask wiki what she was doing way back when.

Lopez's second album, J.Lo, was released on January 23, 2001 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200.

Lopez released her fifth English studio album (sixth studio album overall) Brave on October 9, 2007 ....

so Jenny from the block did a pretty good job of timing her hi and bye to america (n sean's john) proper.

thanks for another good look, Robo.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:16 | 262312 Nolsgrad
Nolsgrad's picture

Earlier on Tuesday, restaurant operator Ruby Tuesday Inc <RT.N> also forecast a decline in same-restaurant sales at company-owned locations in the third quarter due to bad weather. [ID:nN09221457]

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:16 | 262313 Nolsgrad
Nolsgrad's picture

Earlier on Tuesday, restaurant operator Ruby Tuesday Inc <RT.N> also forecast a decline in same-restaurant sales at company-owned locations in the third quarter due to bad weather. [ID:nN09221457]

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:36 | 262337 crzyhun
crzyhun's picture

The one that amazes me is CIT. Again I am tooo slow here abouts, I guess.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:37 | 262339 BlackBeard
BlackBeard's picture

Just your average, every 5 year P/E melt-up people.  Remain calm.  Wait for the catalyst.  Sell Stock.  Wait for end of world puke feeling.  Buy stock.  Repeat.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:40 | 262345 velobabe
velobabe's picture

tiger's coming back, maybe bay hill.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:43 | 262348 Careless Whisper
Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:57 | 262354 Leo Kolivakis
Leo Kolivakis's picture

Robo,

Come on throw me a bone...lol...check out Canadian Solar (CSIQ) today. ;)

And LDK Solar just raised its guidance in AH:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/LDK-Solar-Announces-Date-to-prnews-3581459753.html?x=0

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:18 | 262390 Careless Whisper
Careless Whisper's picture

that's nice but it was up big yesterday and no follow through today. you think maybe it was up yesterday because of this news ??? just sayin'

Leo don't get trapped like this guy;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bMhNI_TY8

 

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:01 | 262454 Leo Kolivakis
Leo Kolivakis's picture

It was up yesterday on other news about some lawsuit being dropped against them.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 23:43 | 262795 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Leo,

I was at an environmental/energy summit last week in which one of keynote speakers made the unchallenged claim that the largest contribution to the growth in solar panels is unsold inventory stored in Chinese warehouses. I have no direct knowledge as to whether this person was being truthful. Personally, I place more confidence in him than in the Chinese authorities. YMMV.

Good luck

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 17:55 | 262367 jc125d
jc125d's picture

That last chart, the point and figure, is a winner.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:18 | 262392 Divided States ...
Divided States of America's picture

Wall Street meets Pornography at its finest

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:22 | 262395 deadhead
deadhead's picture

Recovery Porn.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:26 | 262401 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Serious question - what's driving Citi?  What's happened to justify a 20% run in 3 days?

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:28 | 262407 abalone
abalone's picture

In Agent 86's finest voice 'the ol'e pump & dump trick by KAOS'

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:05 | 262462 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Hey abalone, whose KAOS? I can find Kao Corp in Stuttgart on Yahoo! at KAO.SG, but I don't think that what you mean.

;-)

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:59 | 262534 abalone
abalone's picture

In 'Get Smart' KAOS were the enemy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Smart

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:32 | 262414 Chopshop
Chopshop's picture

group space effect, not exclusive to $#!++ygroup ... bkx, xbd as groups were very easy technical buys into last 2-3 days til last close or this morning even. GS was where everyone watched on measured move breakout but AIG was the easy one to keep playing over n over and C simply follows alongside in the ETF-halo effect.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 23:35 | 262781 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Thanks for your comment chopshop.  I read your posts on a regular basis, and enjoy what you have to say.  Curious how you saw the buy on BKX.  To me it looked like it was running up against obvious resistance, and getting tired until 'they' jammed city and triggered a breakout signal on the whole index.  Thats what got me asking the question in the first place - WFC, BAC and JPM all running out of steam and BKX busting out over resistance?  And what do you know - its this manic move by Citi, that just happens to make the whole index a 'buy' (on the breakout).  So next question is how long can this go?

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:35 | 262419 Racer
Racer's picture

Shorting attack, sorry I meant attacking shorts, well that's the new game this last year so why change it, junk hides the biggest juiciest prize especially if you let them feed peacefully for a while and get complacent and wait for dreadful results/profit warning... you will collect a HUGE collection of them and just when they thought they had the stock by the throat, you hit it with just a couple of BFGs and sit back and watch the carnage

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:44 | 262427 Careless Whisper
Careless Whisper's picture

@Al What's happened to justify a 20% run in 3 days? 

RFLMAO. this is the stock market al.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:05 | 262461 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Yeah, sure, I know.  But 20% for Citi?  Used to seeing that for the little junk stocks (ok, technically C qualifies there too I guess) just not in the big names, unless its off a giant sell-off like last March.

OK, so no good reason, or even any bad reasons - just another pump and dump.  I swear, there's less manipulation and bs nowadays on the Canadian Venture exchange.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:17 | 262477 Careless Whisper
Careless Whisper's picture

the only reason i can see, is that on a 1 month chart, it was a break-out above 3.50; when that happened the other day, the momentum players (or black boxes) jumped on board and it's had a nice run. maybe it's done, maybe not. too risky for me to take a position in it for more than a few hours.

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 01:32 | 262897 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

I was just thinking about a story out of 'Reminiscences of a Stock Operator' where Livermore needed to get out of a short position in corn in a cornered market, so he sold rye heavily (smaller market) and generated the necessary downdraft in corn to close out his short position.   Maybe same thing here - run Citi up, generate the obvious breakout on the BKX and sell WFC, BAC, JPM into the volume generated by those buying the breakout.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:05 | 262431 Leo Kolivakis
Leo Kolivakis's picture

Don't know but Brevan Howard and other big hedgies loaded up on Citi according to their latest quarterly filings:

http://www.mffais.com/208935

Maybe they see an economic recovery bolstering the big banks?

 

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 20:32 | 262566 Howard_Beale
Howard_Beale's picture

Or maybe they see short term gains from a reverse split on the horizon and then they can ride another 10% and dump it? Leo, we are not in a recovery. Wake up and smell the benzene from the Shales projects. We are undergoing corporate rape. Part II coming to an exchange near you.

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 00:24 | 262836 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Hard for me to believe in a real recovery right now, given how much unfunded/unfundable debt there is out there.  Still, market seems to be pretty adamant about ignoring it right now.  I just thought maybe something really good happened to Citi to trigger the sudden rally.  Seems not, though.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:45 | 262430 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Yet another massive floatation of Treasury Bonds...
Yet another up day for Cramer's Horsemen...
Yet another day of crappy returns for "low risk assets". More bottle rocket moves in junker stocks...
More safe haven items like gold discarded in favor of NDX stocks with 75 P/E ratios. What's not to like???

AH YES...More time to sell paper and buy PMs.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:51 | 262444 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

I zeroed in Zero Hedge for my mkt close perusal and what do I see right off top o the page, a post by Mr Robot Trader himself giving us the honest, up to the nanosecond mkt report and to the right a post telling us to repent, buy physical gold and head for the panic room. Now what am I gonna read? AND when are those gremmies trading at Starbucks gonna all start buying their physical?

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 18:52 | 262446 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

It's amazing to me how a couple unicorn tears can make all the money in the world light and fluffy.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:01 | 262457 Sancho Ponzi
Sancho Ponzi's picture

One of these days when I check on Las Vegas Sands, this is what I expect to see:

http://freakingclueless.com/lvs.jpg

 

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:17 | 262478 20yearRevolution
20yearRevolution's picture

I bought skf last wednesday and keep waiting for a bounce to get out...this is fucking amazing.  I am officially done with stocks after this,  I will find other ways to invest my money in the future.  I wonder how many people they are permanently removing from the game through this manipulation.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:35 | 262499 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

You act as if you were screwed over, but I am scratching my head asking why in the hell you would even consider buying SKF (unless to hedge) in this environment.

i.e. steep interest rate yield curve, bank indexes have formed a solid bottom support after going nowhere for 6 months, the fed/gov endless commitment to rescue banks at all costs...etc.

You may want to blame your analysis (or lack thereof) before you put it all out there like you were pawned or something...just sayin.

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 00:52 | 262860 20yearRevolution
20yearRevolution's picture

I agree that it was my fault for getting into stocks again...there have been only 2 times I have ever lost money in business transactions, and they were both in the stock market.  Although I only have 20k in it, this still pisses me off.  I have been watching skf for about 6 months and I joked all along that it was a bet against mother america and sure enough she reared her head and bit me for calling bs on the banks.  What really pisses me off is all the tax money I have put in over the years is being used against me.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:36 | 262500 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Well, before you get too discouraged, JPM led the "selling on strength" list at the end of today's trading... BAC (in 9th from highest) and GS (19th) were also on the list.

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-mflppg-moneyflow.html?mod=m...

SKF and FAZ are like that... is this the first time you've played with inverse leveraged ETFs? Unless you're playing with tomorrow's grocery money and can't eat, don't sell at a loss, just wait it out. These move very quickly when there's a nice selloff, so you should set your automatic sell triggers in case you're not watching the screen. We've seen some pretty volatile intraday swings lately.

Rotation into financials will kill these for a bit, but then the money rotates back out, that's another trend to watch.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:36 | 262501 SteveNYC
SteveNYC's picture

I'm out for good. The mother fuckers only got 9% of my portfolio last year after a few attempted shorts. I got them good between 2007 - 2008 however, they can have the crumbs back, I'm all in cash.

I tell you though, the RUT and NASDAQ look so damn tempting to short the shit out of them right now. Must resist.....

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:33 | 262495 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Unintended consequences, though it would seem the market no longer needs us main street investors.

My parents graduated high school in '29 and explicitly eschewed the market for their entire lives, sometimes referring to it as a house of cards. Still, they were happy their son could make a little profit now and then (and I do mean little.)

They would laugh now, I'm sure, and say "told you so."

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 19:38 | 262502 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

My parents graduated high school in '29, and explicitly avoided stocks their entire lives. If we go back in the crapper, I do not doubt it will have created a similar generation.

(I'm sure if they were still around, they'd chuckle and say, "told ya so.")

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 21:27 | 262628 Matto
Matto's picture

wow, thats a freakin coincidence! whats the chances they all went to the same school??

Sat, 03/13/2010 - 22:05 | 264710 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

You old geezer:)

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 20:06 | 262544 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture

It's simple.  There really are just two reasons why these big-cap junker stocks are flying.  Note that small-caps are by and large NOT:

a)Momentum.  This is not investing, it's a CASINO, pure and simple. There's no other way for big professional traders to make any profits other than to chase anything moving higher, even if they are reduced more and more to consuming each other in the process because no one else is in the market...

b)Low volume.  These junker consumer, RE and teen retailer stocks are predominantly held by large institutional investors, institutions and funds.  Unless they become short of cash as a result of redemptions, retiree pension payouts, etc.( ~ maybe Fall 2008 again? ~ ) they have no need to ever SELL.   Thus, shorting these buggers is futile: note that the ONLY time they plunged was in Fall 2008's liquidity problems.

All we can do is wait until we hear the sound of the knives on each others' bones.  No one else is in the markets...

HELLO!  Is anyone in here???

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 00:30 | 262841 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Yes, casino play, absolutely.  Nobody even feels the need to justify the moves anymore - just juice the price, generate a buy signal on the charts and run it for all its worth.  I've never considered myself a fundamentals investor, but I've always believed that the sector fundamentals should underly any moves of significance.  Not anymore.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 20:32 | 262568 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the collapse of
E-connect, a nice little pink sheet that went fron 10 cents to 22 Dollars, and then back to 25 cents when the SEC halted trading for 1 month.
I never got out-Schwab was too busy to pick up the phone that fateful day for me to bail.
700 grand, oh well, it's only money.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 21:01 | 262596 estrader
estrader's picture

How is the stock market up 19 of the past 20 days,  including 12 in a row.  This market is completely and utterly broken.  Either the Fed/banks are intentionally manipulating everything or there are simply no organic sellers/shorts left to keep an orderly market.  Either way true asset price discovery is not being attained.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 21:31 | 262634 rubearish10
rubearish10's picture

Hard to not sell into this bullshit as long as it's risk capital and not food money. This is uncanny but we've seen it before. 

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 00:34 | 262843 Al Huxley
Al Huxley's picture

Its insane, but I look and I don't see any sell signals, no signs of danger.  Volatility low and dropping, averages solid.  I've reviewed the S&P back to the 50s, the DOW back to the 30s and I can't find a time where the market was as docile as it has been for the past 6 months.  This has to end badly at some point, but not in the near future as far as I can see.

Thu, 03/11/2010 - 22:52 | 262742 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Correct during options week or I am out . Gone. Done. I'll stay in cash and buy CDs.. Someone will assassinate Ben before too long. Forcing old timers to take 2% on CDs .... Shameful. Really fucking shameful.

Nikki..

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 00:16 | 262830 Anonymous
Anonymous's picture

Anyone else notice that is now essentially impossible for SPY to go off more than 30 basis points for more than 30 minutes, EVER?

There is no natural ebb and flow to this market. You'd expect to see a screen on the occasional day show SPY off 50 cents, and god forbid, stay red through the close. Not for any particular reason, no big deal, just statistically. And you never see it.

Watch XRT: retail ETF at highest level since Oct 200*7*. Put/call ratio almost 6:1 today. http://www.marketintellisearch.com/articles/1005280.html

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!