Jim Cramer

When retail sales last month came in far weaker than expected, it was the weather's fault. A month later, we find that the January retail sales were even weaker than expected, with the headline number revised from a -0.4% drop to -0.6%, the ex autos number revised from unchanged to -0.3%, and the ex autos and gas whose drop more than doubled from -0.2% to -0.5%. Oh well: one can't go back in time and force the algos to soar even more (since everyone knows bad news is great news). So how about February? Well, apparently it warmed up because despite expectations of a 0.2% increase in headline and ex auto and gas retail sales, the actual prints were 0.3% for both, beating by the tiniest of margins, yet net lower when adding the January revision. Of course, what happens in April, when the March data too is revised lower, is irrelevant - all that will matter is the current month numbers all of which recently seem to get an odd "optimism" boost that promptly fades away in no time.

"US retail as we have known it for hundreds of years is in sharp decline," warns Bloomberg Brief's Rich Yamarone, adding that "market participants should take note of the fallout in a sputtering US economy." The retail apocalypse, as we discussed here, is dominated by mass layoffs, weak traffic, and poor wage growth and, as Yamarone highlights, it's not hard to see why...

Seth Klarman's comments on "The Truman Show" market and "born bulls" appeared to upset the status quo today on CNBC leaving none other than Joe Kernan and then later, Jim Cramer questioning Klarman's credentials with a passive-aggressive "when did Klarman turn negative? We should look into that..." question. We found it intriguing and wondered how much the investing public weights the differing views of these veritable titans of stock market wisdom. The answer - a market-based answer - lie in the purest measure of all... the cost of acquiring their knowledge...

Everyone agrees that the winter just now winding down (hopefully) has been brutal for most Americans. And while it's easy to conclude that the Polar Vortex has been responsible for an excess of school shutdowns and ice related traffic snarls, it's much harder to conclude that it's responsible for the economic vortex that appears to have swallowed the American economy over the past three months. But this hasn't stopped economists, Fed officials, and media analysts from making this unequivocal assertion. In reality the weather is not what's ailing us. It's just the latest straw being grasped at by those who believe that the phony recovery engineered by the Fed is real and lasting. The April thaw is not far off. Unfortunately the economy is likely to stay frozen for some time to come. 

Presented with little comment aside to note that when 'work is punished' the demise of 'opportunity' will continue...

Presented with no comment...

Despite stocks being at record highs, sell-side strategists proclaiming today's jobs report as great, and the Fed comfortable tapering in the face of transitory weather-related macro weakness, the following chart suggests all is not well... Echoing Irving Fisher, it appears we have reached a permanently high plateau in the duration of unemployment in America...

Today we’re going to look at the most important part of the economy – the US labor markets.

The pool of potential capitulators is practically peopleless...

Assuming that the dismal non-farm-payrolls print in January was "due to the weather," we suspect economists, strategists, and weather-forecasters everywhere are holding their breaths over the February print given the following 2 charts...

It would appear the BFTATH mentaility has morphed into a BTFICBMD perspective as the "market" shrugs off an 'apparently expected' ICBM launch to soar to new record highs with the best day in stocks for months (if not years). USDJPY was in charge intraday as 102 was flushed through (with JPY's biggest drop in 2 months) and dragged stocks (led by the "most-shorted") non-stop. Equity volumes were 20-30% below yesterday's. The USD was relatively unmoved on the day (modestly higher oddly on a risk-on day). Gold and oil prices slipped (but remain in the green on the week) as Silver slipped into the red. Copper rallied. Treasury yields surged 6-8bps (the biggest jump in 4 months) as 2s10s steepened 6bps. VIX was cracked 2 vols lower to 14%. The S&P closed at 1873, just 27 points shy of Goldman's 2014 year-end target.

Shorts were well-and-truly squeezed this morning providing (yet again) just enough ammo to push the S&P back into the green for 2014 and the Russell to new record highs as the pump-and-dump we noted earlier continued for the 3rd day. However, soon after Europe closed, the fabulous five (TSLA, AMZN, FB, AMZN, and TWTR) all stopped levitating and stocks began to drop back to JPY's reality once again. Treasuries continue to rally (-6bps on the week) to 2-week low yields (leaving stocks disconnected) and while early (and considerable) USD strength faded in the afternoon, the USD index ends up 0.2% on the week (with EUR weakness leading). Gold and Silver were monkey-hammered early on but the former recovered some of its losses to end +0.35% for the week so far. While stocks ended unchanged-ish, VIX (following last night's epiuc WTF moment) rose to 14.4% and credit spreads closed wider on the day.

The "most shorted" stocks have quadrupled the performance of the broad market this week as the dash-for-trash remains the best-performing strategy under the premise of an ever-rising strike Yellen put. The ammo for this latest rampapalooza, as we noted here, was hedge fund specs the 'shortest' in over a year which were then squeezed by an ever-present visible hand willing to sell JPY against any and everything in the world (or smash VIX - which ever works best). But as one more skeptical manager noted, "I’ve been a non-believer for so long that I just am not believing yet."

Sometimes one just needs to step back and think, as opposed to getting caught in the eye-twitching idiocy of the JPY-driven ticks in the US equity market day-in and day-out. The following 3 charts may just be that wake-up call that all is not quite as rosy as we are being told and that hope is not a strategy...

The new normal has morphed from a slow-to-no recovery to a "strong" recovery hampered only by bad weather. When data is bad, it's "due to bad weather;" when data is good, it's the recovery... As Google 'quantifies' below, bad weather is 83 times more worrisome than good weather is positive...