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The Volume, As Always, Speaks Volumes
At this point there is little one can add or say. Today the marching orders were for an S&P 1,100. And we will get it. One way or another.
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C'mon, Tyler, get with the program.
The market is UP because investors are cheering the earnings reports from Alcoa and CSX. The media says so...it must be true.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
Too funny yet so true.
It's hilarious to see the main stream media headlines on CSX and AA. This is what the masses are fed and they eat it right up.
The games will be played until the market breaks and they can be played now more, if that ever happens....
Its even funnier that AA is barely up and CSX is down.
as are fast and yum.
Well, when the games can no longer be played, all we will hear is "what can we do to restore investor faith" type talk.
In reality, there is little that can be done because the fundamentals consist of 1/3 of the population is moving into retirement and want nothing more than to de-leverage and spend less money...
Art Cashin put the resistance today at 1095/1098. Looks like they will get 1099 for a high.
I say they failed to break resistance. The 50 DMA speaks volumes as well.
I wouldn't count on that. Retail Sales will be bad tomorrow.
Low volume, manipulation, etc... Actually this market is a product of currency movements (not referring to the worthless AUD/JPY indicator neither; depegging from the ES after a failed breach of 78). Check the EUR/USD and you will find your so-called manipulator, otherwise keep bitching and moaning about low-volume and terrible fundamentals in equties...
Dude that was so 1st quarter.
Does that mean that you disagree?
If so, please tell me why US equity futures dropped both Sun and Mon night during the Asian session and rose during the European session? Also, point out what EUR/USD and DX did during that time?
Recognize a pattern sir?
Abiggs, I was joking. You made ah big deal out of nothing man, relax.
Eye on the Market, July 13, 2010 (attached PDF is much easier to read)
Topics: The 5 best things about the Flash Crash
All eyes are on European bank stress tests, which will be released on July 23. After their release, our European head strategist Cesar Perez and I will take a look at the results. For European banks, it could serve as an important inflection point; for U.S. banks, the test results marked the bottom. But in the U.S., the tests incorporated loss assumptions that were even more severe than losses realized during the worst stretch of the 1930’s Depression, and also came at a time when the global recovery in production was just getting underway. Given the size of the European system, reliance on wholesale funding, slower trend growth and higher levels of corporate and household debt, stress tests will have to be credible to prompt money market and bond funds to start providing capital again. Our focus will be on the rigor of loss and GDP growth assumptions; recently announced decisions to expand the tests to more banks should be seen as a “given”.
The 5 best things about the Flash Crash
On May 6, 2010, major U.S. market indices dropped by over 9%, with a 7% decline within one 15-minute span, temporarily evaporating $1 trillion in market capitalization, before recovering. The SEC has not yet determined what caused this event. In their examinations, the SEC is dealing with a world that has changed a lot from the traditional floor-based outcry model; the percentage of total volumes executed by floor brokers and specialists fell from 52% in 1999 to 7.5% as of 2007.
That’s why the Flash Crash discussion includes a focus on high-frequency trading. Market research estimates that HFT has grown in the U.S. to 70% of all trades (50%-60% of shares traded). In Japan, HFT is roughly 30% of all trading, and in Europe, 40%. The broad category of HFT includes funds that employ algorithms to arbitrage away market variances (e.g., between exchange traded funds and their component stocks), a benign and helpful function for markets. Other HFTs track the order flow of other participants to both influence and benefit from it, which engenders a lot more debate.
There’s a postmodern temptation to define all forms of innovation as progress, but there are big differences between the two. One example: while some forms of genetic engineering are possible, they may also be very undesirable. The downside to some innovation only becomes apparent over time (overuse of antibiotics which may lead to the survival of more virulent strains of bacteria; species transplantation that cause disastrous side-effects for local populations). Some derivatives activity (e.g., CDO-cubed) ended up being innovations with strongly negative aftershocks. You do not have to be a Luddite to raise questions about undesired consequences of innovation, particularly when financial services are involved. The debate is not about reversing innovation in electronic trading, but making adjustments along the way.
Why do we care about all of this? As fiduciaries for several hundred billion dollars in client assets, we are very focused on issues that either raise or detract from market confidence, stability, volatility and perceptions of fairness. With that background, here are 5 positive developments that have either resulted, or may result, from the May 6 Flash Crash.
[1] Stock-specific circuit breakers. The U.S. has been slow to install circuit breakers on major exchanges, relying instead on “clearly erroneous trade rules” that cancel trades after the fact. In Asia and Europe, circuit-breakers have been around for a while. In Asia, trading is restricted outside of pre-specified daily bands of 5%, 10% and 15% (different by market). In Europe (e.g., Deutsche Bourse), trading is halted for 5 minutes after a 3%-10% move, and then reopened. In the wake of the Flash Crash, 10% circuit breakers are now applied to a few stocks as part of a pilot program (they have already been triggered on Citigroup and the Washington Post Company). If we are going to exist in a world with automated robots doing the lion’s share of daily trading, circuit breakers may be needed to prevent unintended and unmanageable meltdowns.
Another topic under discussion by the SEC: prevent HFTs from having “unfiltered, naked access” to the exchanges by requiring them to live by the same pre-trade risk management controls that clearing members do. Why? As noted by the Chicago Fed, “high-frequency trading has the potential to generate errors and losses at a speed and magnitude far greater than that in a floor or screen-based trading environment”.
[2] More balance to the HFT discussion. HFT supporters claim they are providers of liquidity to the market, and that HFT makes U.S. markets more efficient than ever. Suggestions to the contrary have been deemed “utterly laughable” by firms defending them (see Rosenblatt in sources). However, the Flash Crash highlights the uncertainties around these assertions. While volumes have tripled in the last few years, there’s a big difference between volume and liquidity (the ability to transact without moving the price). In an industry barometer survey conducted by the Tabb Group in May of this year, barely half the participants (a) had a high degree of confidence in the US equity market structure; 73% did not believe the market structure is “orderly”. One of the survey recommendations: HFTs should be required to register as broker-dealers.
To be sure, there were weaknesses in the old specialist system as well (b). But specialists were required to maintain a fair and orderly market, and post quotes that were part of the National Best Bid and Offer system; their reputations mattered. HFTs have no such requirements (no minimum shares or minimum quote times); one proposal would require quotes to be valid for at least one second. The SEC has broadened the trader reporting system in order to analyze HFT activity more closely.
[3] Proposals requiring HFTs to act more like the floor specialists they’re replacing. With the advent of HFTs, cancelled orders have soared. Today’s ratio of 30 cancelled orders for each one executed means that 97% are cancelled. To curb abusive practices, some market participants recommend applying a fee to HFTs for an excessive number of cancelled orders. The increase in cancelled orders is one reason we do not agree that increased order depth on S&P 500 stocks at the NBBO is a clear indication of greater liquidity, as some market research alleges. Quotes pulled within a nano-second of being posted, and which are part of an algorithmic order detection exercise, don’t seem like liquidity in the traditional sense. Ameritrade’s representative on the recent SEC Roundtable referred to this as “opportunistic liquidity”.
[4] More discussion around HFT “co-location”. Some HFTs co-locate computer servers inside stock exchanges to minimize the milliseconds (or nanoseconds) required to scan existing orders, and have algorithms act on this information. Co-location services are offered by many exchanges, including NYSE Euronext, Eurex, ICE and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. As trading execution and IPO listing fees declined, exchanges have tried to make up the difference by selling access to market data. Some exchanges have products which give clients a faster look at quotes, in exchange for a fee. As a result, some HFTs end up with access to information sooner than institutional or retail investors who rely on more standard venues (such as SIP Quotes).
The search for co-location benefits has existed forever (in polite company, “order anticipation strategies”). Broker-dealers in past decades argued that being closer to floor traders on the CBOT was an advantage to their clients. But historical parallels can lose their meaning when the instruments of battle change: one HFT computer can reportedly decode more than 5 million messages per second. The Flash Crash has increased the debate around whether co-location confers advantages to HFTs, and whether there should be obligations and responsibilities that accompany them.
[5] Asset managers learn that “cheapest <> best”. After the NYSE moved to decimalization in 2001, bid-offer spreads fell almost in half on S&P 500 stocks (less so for the Russell 2000 stocks, where HFTs are less active). Schwab retail commissions fell from $35 in 2003 to less than $10 in 2009. This trend is confirmed by broader research from the American Association of Individual Investors. So if the prism of success is bid-offer costs and commissions on individual trades, the battle has been won.
But is that the right prism to define what makes an optimal marketplace? Part of the HFT industry tracks the order flow of larger investors who leave electronic footprints (c). Using algorithms which include spraying the tape with thousands of quotes, the intentions of large investors is ferreted out. This can result in higher trading costs for such investors, and by extension, their clients, who include 401k investors, and pensioners participating in state and corporate plans. Quantitative Services Group computes analyses of HFT impacts on execution costs. They estimate that HFT tracking algorithms can drive execution costs up 1.5 to 3 times, even when institutional investors parcel trades into smaller orders to avoid detection.
One last point on the Flash Crash. At a June SEC Roundtable dealing with the crash and market structure, the CEO of Vanguard proposed “depth of book” protection. In plain English: customer orders should get the benefit of the best bids and offers at multiples prices across exchanges, rather than just the single best quote on one exchange. With the average trade size having fallen by 70% in the last few years, only protecting the single best bid/offer has become less meaningful. A “depth of book” rule might prompt traders to post more limit orders and reduce volatility, a view shared by the Tabb Group survey respondents.
Conclusions
Over the last decade, trading automation coincided with substantial improvements for equity investors. Information is available more readily, and transactions costs have come down on individual trades. High frequency trading is here to stay, and parts of the industry contribute to greater efficiencies. But the HFT industry may have gotten ahead of anyone’s ability to understand and monitor its capabilities and consequences. The combination of a singular quest for lower execution costs and advanced technology may have resulted in a more fragmented marketplace in which liquidity is temporal, and in less incentive to display limit orders or contribute capital to market-making. The Flash Crash provides a basis for regulators and market participants to consider these consequences in more detail than they have so far, and make adjustments. As shown below, confidence in the market has been dented by the latest events, and there’s work to be done to restore it.
In its request to improve market structure and sort these issues out, the SEC had this to say:
“Where the interests of long-term investors and short-term professional traders diverge, the Commission repeatedly has emphasized that its duty is to uphold the interests of long-term investors”.
On that, we agree 100%.
Michael Cembalest
Chief Investment Officer
J.P. Morgan Private Banking
Notes
(a) The TABB survey included buy side investors, broker-dealers, execution venues, liquidity providers, advisory firms, consultants and technology providers. Topics included HFT, co-location, trade-at and depth-of-book rules, stub quotes and large trader reporting rules.
(b) The lowest common denominator argument that specialists didn’t do a great job during the 1987 crash simply means that the proposed registration, pre-trade, naked access and minimum quote controls on HFTs are even more important for the marketplace.
(c) The proliferation of so-called “dark pools” such as LiquidNet and Pipeline reflect a desire by institutional investors to avoid detection by HFT algorithms. This may lead to greater market fragmentation.
Levitation, Viagra style. One little blue pill does so much to make so many happy for such a short (long?) time. Long live the Fed.
<sarcasm off>
Blue Pill (the Matrix kind) is right...
Nice catch on the in-your-end-do.
of course, because it 11 fits into their occultist paradigm... what was the number in the s&p march 09 low again???
my counter move was to be long 2222 shares of BGZ... lol!!!
CSX is down
yup...
The bid to ask ratio for inverse etfs tracking the S&P is about 4 to 1.
Not feeling all that upset here.
Eventually the Fed or whoever is pushing the markets up will run out of steam.
When the bid side for the 1% or so of all stocks that make up over 90% of all trading is not supporting at sell offs. .. well watch out below.
Just a thought: supposing the Fed started free-flowing digital dollars into the PDs to just 'buy'? Buy buy buy. Buried at the bottom of an ocean of opacity, obfuscation and lies, who would know? How would we see it, let alone prove it? Dust off Operation Twist, perhaps. Like Dark Matter, we could not prove it existence, only detect the properties associated with its presence. What are the checks and balances ensuring this is not a constant source of liquidity ensuring a permanent bid of some force? Maybe that source is growing more insistent as the selling force gathers force. Maybe this is 'evidence' in odd happenings and whatnots we are seeing in the Market.
I don't know the answers or even if these are just stupid questions, but it is something I wonder about. Maybe the smarter people here can answer.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE52I3AG20090319
Could be but how would the endless buyer (Fed) prevent their cash from actually leaving the market and go someplace else? There is a whole industry dedicated to the stock markets and traders want to get paid, investors want to lock in profits.
If all that goes sideways and there's literally no more money to be made in the market then the Fed is holding the largest empty bag in the history of mankind.
They won't do that. They frontrun the market, they buy stock but they want to offload as well. That means they will sell to the next best bidder. They have to.
Unless we're contemplating that the Fed is the biggest mentor and sponsor of the stock market and its participants because they want everyone to be rich.
You know that would be the end of money as we know it.
Never short a dull tape. Also, with an absence of selling pressure, prices go up.
For the most part, true for the former, false for the latter.
What are those wibbly wobbly thingies on your avatar Muir?
DavidC
My guess is 36-DD's!
last 10 minutes of the day and .. sell, sell, sell !!!
that worked till last week... maybe continue
for the last 2 weeks we had this zero volume 15 minute before closing uptick.
either it wasn't necessary today or the trend is changing.
down on volume.. when hit trend... that was fast
Did somebody just order the 2 week bullish Wallstreet pizza?
.
Brian Williams loves a big number. He will have to bring in some great pump monkey tonight to explain to the masses how great Q2 was, and how safe their 401K's are. Jim Cramer or Erin Burnett?
Erin Burnett. She can wear a tight, low cut sweater, and push-up bra to highlight her "b-cups". Then she can go on about the "strong earnings" coming from corporate America, and about the "lower than expected deficit". Then she can do a hair flip for effect.
TD, You sure you got the volume button thingie set right on your machine? Did you maybe set it upside down? Because that would really suck.
In fact, wouldn't it be the most Matrix-like of all if Tyler were in fact... Bernanke?!?! What a way to fuck with all the contrarians. Give us all just enough truth to hook us, and then lead us over the fucking cliff. Ben/Tyler/Tim you you fucker. The worst of it all was that I thought I'd finally found a home.
The Matrix is too powerful. You got me again. Show yourself, bastards!
Joe, use your Bloomberg terminal to show us how the VWA is wrong here?
"SCOTTIE,HAVE TRANSPORTER ON STANDBY"
"ONE TO BEAM UP"
"GET A GOOD FIX ON HIS POSITION"
"BEAM TROOPER JOE DIRECTLY TO SICKBAY"
I've often wondered this. Disinformation is an artform. How do you beat the opposition? Lead them. The flow of the truth cannot be stopped, so the next best thing is to poison it by giving just enough right information to get everyone's heads nodding in agreement, then you slip in some key lie that is taken as the truth.
A hallmark of a disinformation agent is that it will give you information to evoke an emotional response, but never give you a solution. They don't want you to have an answer, they just want you to rise up...
I don't think this website has crossed over, but everything is for sale, as we all know.
I haven't been on here very long, but I've seen the solution many times already: stop playing the game.
Wow, wasn't expecting that...
Nobody expects the Spanish Inqusition!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o
Wow, wasn't expecting that...
The horrid retail sales numbers out tomorrow, will put a huge damper on this fake melt-up. Get positioned in AH. You saw the 45 point wallop just before close. Goldie knows what is coming tomorrow already.
The retail sales will be good,trust me. Bernie talked to me today and said no worries
man, we will make them look good.
FAIL
I get the point on the volume (though I admit I still don't quite understand the metric).
Even so, is there a source (non-Bloomberg for those unemployed among us), to see this stat in historic, more rational times?
I'd like to get a feel for just how far out of whack this is in an historical context.
This economy and market is like watching the 1967 Mets winning the World Series.
1969 mets
No, I actually meant the 1967 Mets. The suck-ass Mets that lost 101 games. That's how bad this economy is, but they still win the world series.
YUM brands is getting hammered like a washed up porn star on Hollywood Blvd. in afterhours.
Yet... Intel is up 5% on higher 2Q and FY guidance. Perhaps the NASDAQ continues to the moon...
there is no limit...
jim rogers is shorting the nasdaq
As warned about earlier, DOW/SP500 remains bullish for now ...
But it's only a counter trend rally.
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
the clown is kinda freakin me out...
Johnny Bravo's alter ego.
Does 1099.46 count, with capitualtion by the little lemmings and a ton of selling on the close?
what just happened
Take a look at how many months in the past 12 the SPY has closed at or very near 110 on option expiration day. Any guesses as to where it'll close on Friday?
CNBC Maria Bartiromo Poll today:
97% are bullish in Ford.
Does her husband still work with Michael Steinhardt
whom Cramer worked with before MB brought him to Kudlow and CNBC?
http://www.deepcapture.com/jim-cramer-is-a-complicated-man/
Didn't Saddam Hussein get 99.9999% of the vote also?
This will all end with bloodshed unless the US banks et al come clean on their finances. Otherwise, it will boil over and the extremists will start to act. Not far now. The market manipulation of futures markests, open markets, owership of General Motor et al., the two "F" Freddie and Fannie. Too many balls in the air. It will take one small incident on the other side of the world to set off a butterfly effect that takes the whole fuc_ing stinking mess down. We need someone to kick this can over the cliff.
I'll make a note of that, do you have a timeline so I know when to start digging my bunker?
<sarcasm off>
Dude this is 1984, nothing is going down. They just doctor the numbers when things start to go bad, they front run the markets with HFT to calm market crashes, and they extend swaps in huge sums to calm fears about the short term health of other nations, they change accounting rules when companies are bankrupt. They print their own money and make their own weapons. They are firmly in control.
+10
The facts favor your interpretation of events.
Ah.... Yes. Rare species that one, the stink fuck butterfly.
indeed.
the crowning jewel of any Lepidopterist's collection.
ok, market rallies on no volume... can someone actually explain how to use this information in a pragmatic way? i.e. why wouldn't zero-volume-rally continue tomorrow?
Yay and ney. Wake up and check the Retail Sales number at 8:30.
they can manipulate sales numbers too.
The smart chickens are trading on the correlations, as opposed to just bitching about it. It's summer, so volume is low to begin with, so when you see the volume numbers begin to plunge, and the EURUSD goes up, go long. It's pretty simple.
Would you recommend doing this during 8a-12p when volume should be really high or at some other time when volume already tappers off? I noticed a lot of volume today on the EUR/USD between the 8a and 12p overlap.
Better yet, is there a specific time you should suggest I look for low volume this trade?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
I think you ned to look at volume across the whole equity market over a few day average, and DXY levels for FX.
FX guys will tell you that volume measures in that market are pretty meaningless, just use the levels.
well, all I see is attempts to push AUD/JPY through 78 resistance... wouldn't FX carry ES up once it brakes resistance?
Maybe, but I mean as far as a short term trading strategy. You know, good for a few bones a day sort of thing.
Unfortunately EUR/USD and DX is king in this market. AUD/JPY is a worthless of an indicator as EUR/JPY - after failing to go above 78 Sunday evening, you can write it off...
There will be no reversal in equities until EUR/USD changes direction. The Greek bond auction and weak US trade balance numbers are not helping the equity bear case.
my algos work fine with combo of AUDJPY CADJPY ... EURUSD never mattered to them..
I agree that AUD/JPY complements algo's better on an hft-like short-term basis, but it does nothing for the substantive longer-term moves...
Both of those ladies are way past their prime.
If you are going to put a picture of a woman up on ZH, use a real woman, like this!
http://www.google.com/images?q=lily%20thai&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-U...
Kathie Lee isn't as perky as she used to be... but she's what? 60?
more like 90
blood transfusions and gingko biloba
looks like a Thai he-she
This is a buying opportunity. Buying some more SPY long term puts.
Jamie Dimon in that picture looks like a horrible cross-breed between Stephen Harper and Simon Baker of The Mentalist fame.
bet he wouldn't be smiling if he were sitting in the dock, facing a guillotine armed mob. A distinct possibility.
FTSE 100 futures just jumped 0.6%. And DOW and S&P 500 futures have also recovered the sell-off at the end.
Crooked as you like.
WTF futures dont gap
INTC blow out. I think where the narrative is wrong, is that everyone here is focused on the shitty US economy. The listed companies are mostly global and levered to the global economy, not the ponzi dog crap US economy. what's more, the 40% of people in the US who define "crappy US economy" are mostly irrelevant to the fortunes of most listed companies, Wal-Mart excepting.
so the halt was necessary for what reason?
Chemba, every economy that matters is based on a fiat ponzi one way or another. No exceptions. China's real estate ponzi is about to end and with that, the Chinese demand for imported status symbols from Germany. BMW reported massive sales to the Chinese status queens. Let 'em drive it. I remember that a few years ago every American wanted their Beemer too.
40 million Americans live on food stamps. Mortgage delinquencies are rising among the uppety class as well.
Even if there's still some glimmer of hope somewhere, more and more people are pissed that they're not able to participate as they used to or participate at all.
The Depression is becoming a self fullfilled prophecy and nobody, absolutely nobody can tell convince people of the opposite or give people a reason to believe that it could be any other way.
The political and banking cabal overdid it this time. They went too far and they better start running or hiding.
so you say the global economy is doing fine..steaming ahead ha..that is due to your FED printing dollars and that money being used elsewhere around the world buddy..we saw Intels sales last year and 2008 during the Lehman times..we will see it again..
INTC is in a duopoly, almost a monopoly. And what they sell is almost a utility these days. I wouldn't ever make market calls based on the profits of a monopolist selling a necessary good. Globally the economy sucks.
Scam market.
pretty soon , 700 million share days on NYSE , everything else in a black pool
pretty soon , 700 million share days on NYSE , everything else in a black pool
intc is virtually a monopoly, so intc != economy
and even with that, take a closer look at their consumer numbers
why cant they push thru 1100 with INTC
You people will sit around here and watch the parade pass you by. Your brain washed reading all this doom and gloom.
It is "you're". As in, "YOU're drinking too much whiskey" or, "YOU're sitting on a curb only a short distance from where the parade marches right off the cliff of fundamental reality."
And brainwashed is 1 word. Brain washing is some weird Jeffrey Dahmer cookbook thing.
Agreed. They will watch through the sewer grates convinced that the parade that just passed was an illusion and didn't pass at all. Well, the floats are all lined up and moving out, so you can sit and sulk or you can jump on board for the ride higher. How long - who knows.
I used to think this site was frequented by an educated group of people who understood the markets and various relationships. In reality this is just a site where shorts can bitch and moan when they are proven wrong.
WAH!!! The market's up 3% but there's no volume!!! Must be the PPT - Must be the fed - Must be pixie dust on the exchange floors. WAH!!!
That's some outstanding gloating there.
As a pragmatic Bear who's been 80% in cash/treasuries since 2007 and also built up a nice "fun money" fund playing the inevitable plunges ... I personally laugh at you, sir/madame.
You're nothing but a "look at me" chest-thumping player who makes a couple of impressive consecutive scores in an overall losing effort.
Actually, this guy is nothing more than the fool who keeps bragging "I'M THE MAN" to all his friends day in and day out on how good he is at Blackjack.. only to find out later that he's the guy quietly asking his buddies for some money so he can play again.
I'm sure he'll go back to his CNBC website and tell all his educated posters that they are right and we're a bunch of fools who are constantly proven wrong.
LOL so you copy/paste your insults - I'm the man, blackjack, cnbc...
I dont agree with his post neither but instead of insulting, it would be helpful to give an alternate opinion sir.
You're a pathetic excuse for an individual
Parades that smart people let pass by.. only to see the parade never make it to the end of the street:
* Real estate market (y'know - dumb phrases like "hurry or you'll get priced out, real estate always goes up, etc.")
* Stock market (sorry - peak was 14k.. and we're barely of 10k only because of 3.5 trillion Obamabucks. Some parade. Who's cleaning it up?)
* Tech market (pets.com, violet.com, putupawebsitedotcomandpullinmillions.com, etc.)
On that note, it looks like we can tell who is brain washed, and who isn't. Sorry if our intellect doesn't match your great gambling wisdom. I'm all in cash right now because I can't outlast a computer with unlimited taxpayer-funded bankroll. Don't mind the fact that the ^DJI took about 4 years to get from 10k to 14k.. and only about 9 months to go back from 14k to 6.5k. Oh that's right - I'm brainwashed by reading this site. I can't think for myself anymore. *rolls eyes*
Your brain washed reading all this doom and gloom.
Lately there's been so much bad news that my brain has had time to not only wash, but also shave and slip into a tux for cocktails before dinner.
In a stealth Bull market there are more bears than bulls. So market goes up on slight volume. That is to be expected. We are on a stealth Bull market from March 2009.
STEALTH bull market = STEALTH recovery
You hear about it all the time, but you don't see it anywhere.
Go back to Feb 2009 when nearly a million were loosing their jobs every month, housing was collapsing, credit markets frozen and tell me there has been no recovery since then. Yes it has not showed in employment, but for companies like Intel whose also have overseas market have done great.
Fair enough, lets go back and count all the layoffs by INTC since then compared to who they have hired up to date, and let's see how they made probably 50% of their profit or better. Since you want to talk global, make sure you use global layoffs too.
It is "losing" ... as in, "you're going to be losing your bets soon if you believe government-sponsored accounting lies, short-term government props of the housing market (did you not SEE the recent annual new home sales rate?!) and a free Fed money-fueled equities market somehow = recovery."
I hate to break it to you, but pot isn't a "recovery" (cure) for fatal disease, and luck & intervention isn't a "recovery" (cure) for either stupidity or economies.
Yes the recovery has been feeding off Govt credit since March 2009 when private credit was sharply falling. It is still so. Wait till Republicans(open oligarch supporters unlike Democrats who are hidden supporters) become majority and with austerity medicine stock market and dollar falling at the same time. if our wage is not going to grow + globalization, our ability to take on credit is very tenous.
See the results in diesel consumption
http://www.ceridianindex.com/
You got me confused, Tevye ... has there been a legitimate recovery, or not?
You got me confused, Tevye ... has there been a legitimate recovery, or not?
If I was a Rich Man.
I think a Govt induced recovery is legitimate so that it can be self sustainable.
A wage inflation can reduce our debt loads and this recovery can become self sustaining.
It is only possible if chinese and others are willing to get a diluted return on their Treasury investments and some ant-globalization. But the austerians(+hidden oligarchs) can derail this and cause crash of stock market + dollar : Dec 2010 plus with +5% capital gains tax starting next year 2011.. Just my opinion.
"Tevye : One more stairs leading nowhere, but just for show"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc
There has been no recovery since then.
http://i31.tinypic.com/91a44o.png
1st quarter 2010 CPI adjusted total state tax revenues have actually gone down from 1st quarter 2009. The economy is in worse shape than the supposed "bottom".
Can't bullshit a bullshitter.
Fast forward to 2011 when millions more will be losing their jobs.
Austerity is a bitch when your whores are hooked on cheap crack.
Intel up 6% AH.
Stock is $22 and dividend of 51 cents per share.
2.3% yield or annualized 9.2% if they keep revenues up.
At previously 16 cents per share though it was annual 2.9% yield.
The future is somewhere in the middle probably a 4% yield annually.
All depends now if investors keep the stock much longer past the dividend payout.
I suspect this can continue for a long long time. We may even look back on the late June low the same way we look at March 2009. The liquidity (cash) is there, few have any interest in selling, nobody will ever do a thing to stop Bernanke, and some companies can produce/fabricate good numbers. Indeed, a single good earnings report lifts all ships. On top of that, bad economic numbers are ignored faster than a has-been Hollywood star.
The wider economy might suck, the rest of the world may also be running on freshly printed money, governments are stuffed tighter than a Weight Watcher's bikini, existing and under-construction capacity is poorly utilized...but for the foreseeable future it simply doesn't matter.
Cash if you need it, accounting according to your own needs and desires, a captured Legislative and Executive Branch of Government, and a widely held belief that Bernanke and Geithner stand firmly behind the market (until jailed and/or executed) all point to a volume-less melt-up, perhaps into the end of the year. And the people (myself included) will never do the one and only thing that would end the madness and corruption that have seized this nation.
While I know it will end one day in a blinding flash of no-bid spntaneous combustion, I have no desire to stand in the way while it is living its fantasy.
If the FED can permanently avoid being audited, why can't this literally go on forever? Seriously, why not?
You do have a point. It can go on forever.. until enough people think the US debt is as manageable as a house of cards being built on tumbleweed during a windy day. Then *boom* 2008 all over again - and then some, but in a much shorter time period.
Is the debt being accurately and honestly reported?
The only meaningful constraint is on issuance of public debt. If the president is willing to invoke emergency powers in order to keep spending without a budget, this could keep going until at least 2012.
Why would he need to do that if the FED is covertly monetizing by proxy with the PDs? I think anyone with a firing neuron already knows that's happening anyway. If you can't look behind the curtain, then why couldn't it simply go on?
Because people, businesses and other entities (govts) cannot exceed certain debt thresholds. That is a fact... isn't it?
Well, not really (although it should be). The states are massively insolvent. You can bet there will be some way to weasel in a bailout even it greatly stretches authority granted to the FED. GM, Chrysler, all the banks, insurance companies, AIG, et al were out of credit. But, presto, more was granted.
To be honest, I'm not even sure they are reporting all the money being dispensed and especially with 'electronic' money. I'm not even sure that the trades driving the market are even being actually done between two unique identies. Fuck, I'm not even sure that the FED has a fraction of the gold reserves it claims to have.
I guess my point and fear is that they've gone so far down a road of deciet that there are no more rules, laws, consequences, et al.
Hey, I may be 'out there' on this but this shit is getting surreal as hell and, in my opinion, accelerating rapidly.
Nothing...and I mean NOTHING would surprise me at this point.
As long as everyone gets a paycheque, who cares right?
As long as the bankers get billions in bonuses and leave at least a few crumbs for the rest and that includes unemployment benefits ad infinitum, who cares right?
Well.. it doesn't work that way.
You have billions in bonuses and millions w/o any pay at all.
Won't last .. much longer.
Anger should have a symbol. It would be off the charts.
It would be underperforming rage.
There you have it.
RAGE up 10,000% since December 2007.
The only true indicator of economic recovery.
Rage down, economy up.
Further to your thoughts... the bonuses are a focal point.
Wall Street "performs" translates into continued bonuses. That in the face of more and more people who are out of benefits and no jobs in sight.
If the market goes down, the bonuses stop and the out and down people won't feel all that angry anymore.
Wall Street can't have its cake and eat it too. Too much cake and they get slaughtered by the peasants that can't even afford bread.
This time won't be different.
I have no issue with vigilantism. None whatsoever. But, for Christ's sake, let's fucking do it before the house burns completely down.
Well that's a sensible post, and you could be correct.
I'm personally wondering how the fewer & fewer earnings beats (that will happen) can be spun as we progress further into time when the comparisons get tougher & tighter? And a housing market announcing 250k/month new sales rate for months on end? And very large #s of people falling off of unemployment with no implications? Perhaps I'm underestimating our ability to swallow larger & larger doses of nasty reality, but I don't know...
What you describe is, in reality, the later stages of a large ponzi... the moral hazard stage where there is no choice but to escalate the expansion of the ponzi. I think that's what you're describing. If you can safely benefit from the free ponzi money yet safeguard from the inevitable moment of truth ... then it makes sense to take advantage.
I don't feel comfortable that I can do that, so I've only been making downside bets (with stops) for the last 3 years.
Whatever low volume gains the market gets between now and its next lower top will be wiped out in 1/3rd of the time (with high volume) that it took to get there, just like the last one.
OT: Did anyone see Dylan completely obliterate this politician the other day? This needs it's own post here ZH. Keep kicking ass Dylan.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#38211035
Dylan nailed it.
The banker's whore aka politician just trying to stir up political controversy between team blue and team red which of course is just a distraction to keep the illusion of a democracy.
I liked his reference to the vampire sucking the oxygen from the economy.
Finally there are the talking points the masses will understand.
Billions in bonuses and billions in banking profits are generated on the backs of the people and the only sector hiring is the sucking sector.
Yea, I saw that yesterday too. What a full-on bitch slap. I loved every moment of it. And, it's dead-nuts correct. The guy was being a raging douche bag. I wonder if Dylan is setting himself up for a political run (prob not).
Nevertheless, Dylan 1 - Slimy Douche Bag 0
Early last week I questioned the validity of yet another July Head & Shoulders pattern that "certainly was a great short to take us to 800's".
Well, here we are a year later and another fake out H&S. With earnings reports "seemingly" better than expected and some rather bullish forward looking comments, it looks like we might continue for a bit higher.
I'm sitting in cash as I travel, mystified by it all. Maybe retail sales tomorrow will shed a little light. God help any short if they come in BTE.
And, as I had mentioned in my response to your post, the markets are headed higher, much higher, possibly. Anybody shorting, be careful.
http://cotstimer.blogspot.com/2010/07/smart-money-highly-bullish-on-rebound.html
As an aside, Harry, in your travels are you noticing any changes in the economic realities of the country; changes in behaviour or sentiments in the people you are meeting, which is making you question your bearish disposition? Appreciate your response.
Dude, everyone and his brother saw the head and shoulders along with the death cross. Precisely why the market is going higher! Here's a little secret...don't tell anyone...it's rigged...
That's it, I'm throwing in the towel... this earnings season is taking the Dow to 12K and AAPL will have a market cap of $350 billion by year-end... I can no longer stick to a thesis just because it makes perfect sense... nothing makes sense anymore... I think I'm losing my mind...
You have to wonder who is buying. . . unless this is a vote by many that QE2 is coming, is inevitable, and like deja vue its March 2009 all over again, but starting at a higher number. . . and who wouldn't have started buying in advance then if you knew? Free money. Literally. Remember single digits for AIG? Such horseshit.
it is designed to make people mad. as soon as you quit being bearish, then the market will drop. it's all a plan to make you unhappy. dont worry they made the same plan for me.
Why am I getting messaged saying that visiting zerohedge will harm my computer? This never happened! The Fuck. I trust ZH, what I don't like is that I'm being warned to stay away from the site.
Da Fck....
I dunno, It has only happened twice. I use Chrome. Once with a porn site and once here.
look out the window and check for a windowless white van, no lights, satellite dish on roof.
Yes, I keep getting that message, too. What the fuck is up with that?
Question: If banks buy each other’s stocks to inflate their share respective share price; what is to stop countries from collectively doing the same thing to the stock markets? In addition, if so how?
Also, I think the corporatization of North American culture is complete in that the family unit now behaves with the logic of a corporation - corporation becoming culture. For example, the significant change in attitude regarding mortgage default. I was wondering if there are other examples out there?
Finally, why not link the growth in M1 and 2 money supply (the juice that get's leveraged i think) to national ecological productivity. That is, link the economic and environmental spheres. How? By forcing money supply and interest rates to be linked to quantitative measurable accounts of natural productivity. That way we cannot grow faster than nature. Get’s us away from the debate about humans deciding how and when to regulate money supply which is at the heart of the financial crisis and suggested solutions. Gold was once a nation’s store of wealth. It’s time to link our economy to our real store of wealth, our environment.