Stocks Stage Brave Friday Rally, Fall For Week As Yellen Denies Bubble

Janet Yellen, April 7, 2016:

"So I would say the US economy has made tremendous progress in recovering from the damage from the financial crisis. Uh, slowly but surely the labor market is healing. Um, for well over a year we’ve averaged about 225,000 jobs a month. The unemployment rate now stands at 5%. So, we’re coming close to our assigned congressional goal of maximum employment. Um, inflation which, um, my colleagues here Paul [Volker] and Alan [Greenspan]
um, spent much of their time as chair um, bringing inflation down from unacceptably high levels. For a number of years now inflation has been running under our 2% goal and we’re focused on moving it up to 2%. Um, but we think that it’s partly transitory influences, namely declining oil prices, and uh, the strong dollar that are responsible for pulling inflation below the 2% level we think is most desirable. So, I think we’re making progress there as well, and this is an economy on a solid course, um, not a bubble economy. Um, we tried carefully to look at evidence of potential financial instability that might be brewing and some of the hallmarks of that, clearly overvalued asset prices, high leverage, rising leverage, and rapid credit growth. We certainly don’t see those imbalances. And so although interest rates are low, and that is something that could encourage reach for yield behavior, I wouldn’t describe this as a bubble economy."

Janet Yellen; Stupid or insincere?

So, apparently, April Fool's Day has been extended to April Fool's Week. The Chairwoman's comment was made in response to a question of whether the US economy was in a bubble.

It has become increasingly obvious to more than just high-rollers on Wall Street, that the occupants of various ivory towers in the Eccles Building are either clueless or lying, and, whichever camp one adheres to, the idea that their economic policies have been detrimental to the common good is without doubt.

Friday's action was nothing more than a dead cat bounce, with all three major indices ripping at the open, but running stagnant as the session wore on, finally ending with small gains.

For the week the degradation was uniform, the Dow lost 215.79 (-1.21%), the S&P shed 25.18 points (-1.21%), while the exuberant NASDAQ dropped 63.85 (-1.30%) points.

Oil gained six percent on the day, followed by more stable precious metals, particularly silver, which has rebounded nicely from a recent smack down.

Friday's Pop and Flop:
S&P 500: 2,047.60, +5.69 (0.28%)
Dow: 17,576.96, +35.00 (0.20%)
NASDAQ: 4,850.69, +2.32 (0.05%)

Crude Oil 39.51 +6.04% Gold 1,241.70 +0.34% EUR/USD 1.1395 +0.18% 10-Yr Bond 1.72 +1.71% Corn 362.00 +0.14% Copper 2.09 +0.48% Silver 15.37 +1.40% Natural Gas 1.99 -1.49% Russell 2000 1,097.31 +0.41% VIX 15.36 -4.95% BATS 1000 20,682.61 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4128 +0.51% USD/JPY 108.1670 -0.08%