Jim Cramer

Just a month ago, the President and his administration gloated as Republican support plumbed new record low depths amid the shutdown debacle. Just last week, however, amid the ongoing snafu that is the Obamacare launch, the President's approval rating itself dropped to an all-time low (though the media was oddly quiet about that). This week sees another milestone on the verge of being broken as the "glitches" - both technological and physical - continue, stocks surge, and employment stagnates five years after the end of the recession... the President's disapproval rating is within 1 point of its record high.

3 months later and it appears hope has reverted (once again) to its new normal reality. "Just one more quarter," we are sure, will be the clarion call from all asunder...

As we recently exclaimed, European macro data is deteriorating rapidly (even as talking-head after talking-head simply ignore this 'fact' and steer investors into EU stocks because, well, they are going up). That "Europe is recovering" meme appears an unarguable truth - except when you look at the truth of the following charts.

Obesity rates have increased at least slightly so far in 2013 across almost all major demographic and socioeconomic groups, according to Gallup's latest study. The largest upticks between 2012 and 2013 were among those aged 45 to 64 and those who earn between $30,000 and $74,999 annually - which 'coincidentally' is perfectly in the cohort that is 'disincentized' to work by the growing shadow of bought votes and entitlements. So, the question then becomes, is the considerable spike in 2013 that is so evident below the "peak" in obesity rates as the government is forced to introduce more haircuts on its foodstamp program? Time will tell...

The German election is over and the confrontation over the US debt ceiling has ended, so event risk should be minimal, right? Not so fast, UBS' Mike Schumacher warns - plenty of pitfalls could trip markets. Forward-looking measures of 'risk' are beginning to show some signs of less-than-exuberance reflected in all-time-highs across all US equity indices and if previous episodes of 'low-vol' are any guide, the current complacency is long in the tooth... no matter how 'top-heavy' stocks become; bloated by the flow of heads-bulls-win-tails-bears-lose ambivalence...

...BTFATH is more popular than BTFD.

For all your, well, just one really, New Normal daytrading needs.

SSDD. Collapsing confidence, check. Housing Recovery meme toast, check. Volume at 2013 lows, check. BTFATH and send Trannies up for 13th of last 15 days (+10.4%), Dow near all-time highs again (thank you IBM buybacks), and S&P to new all-time highs... but don't tell Treasuries (which stand +/-1bps on the week). VIX wasn't drinking the kool-aid but the NASDARK session enabled futures to drag us back to higher before limping lower into the closer. The USD oscilatted around Nowotny comments and POMO ending the day up a rather notable 0.5% from Friday's close and that pressured commodities in general lower (gold hovering at $1345). Credit, Treasuries, VIX, and volume are all diverging from equity exuberance. The last 2 minutes saw stocks scream higher on their own as the world was terrified it would miss out on something (but no other market moved) and all the major indices managed new highs.

Inflation, meh! Growth, bleh! Unemployment, whatever! The terrifying news is that it seems, despite the ongoing 'surge' to new all-time highs in stocks, they are losing the confidence of the "rich". With everything hinging on the 'wealth effect' of moar QE and a levitating US stock market, the fact that Bloomberg's Comfort Index for the most affluent earners just collapsed (and stayed at) seven-month lows - in the face a rip-your-face-off rally in stocks - suggests even the wealthy know when the music is beginning to end...

With the Dow Transports leading the way (now up for the 10th of the last 11 days and 9.7% off its debt-ceiling-debacle lows), US equity markets are engorged on the euphoria of this "can't lose" scenario that offers free lunches (and ponies) for everyone. On the heels of SocGen's call (eerily reminiscent of Schiff's and Faber's prophecy of rising QE no matter what), it's 315pm, have you greatly rotated your money on the sidelines to BTFATH yet?

It's different this time, right... even the CAT CEO found a silver lining of hope for the future (admittedly 5,10, 200 years in the future), but, the sad reality is we have seen exactly this kind of disconnect between CAT's idiocyncratic revenues and world GDP before... and it didn't end well...

"Don't Stop Believing..."

Tired of reading 640 pages of "The Intelligent Investor"? Exhausted from imbibing 700 pages of "Security Analysis"? Fed up with the 400 pages of "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money"? Have no fear, we have summarized the new normal's investing mantra into 14 words...

Just a few moar years of unlimited open-ended quantitative money printing and we are sure this will all be fixed...

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