Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Stocks Under Pressure; Bulls All Die At Some Point

Anybody who believes that this current bull market - fueled by easy money policies from central banks, fake statistics, and enormous government deficits - will continue much longer needs to take a reality check.

Just for those who cannot or will not see the forest for the trees, the following:

  • The 10-year-note is stuck in a perpetual yield range of 2.3-something.
  • Stocks have been going sideways for week.
  • There's almost no chance that the congress will pass any kind of tax reform bill this year as they are doing nothing more than posturing for the midterm elections.
  • The national debt continues to soar to new heights, despite happy talk from the administration (remember, congress holds the purse-strings).
  • The percentage of people in the workforce is still at near-record lows.
  • The Us trade deficit with China is not shrinking.
  • State pension plans and many private pension plans are underfunded by trillions of dollars.
  • Voting doesn't matter (see the fiasco over Roy Moore)
  • Corporate profits are beginning to show serious signs of a slowdown (GE, Chipolte, others)
  • Foreclosures, bankruptcies, student loan defaults are rising.

That is just a sampling, and today's market, in form with the past few sessions, took a nosedive at the open only to recover thanks to spirited heavy lifting by the PPT or central bank cronies on the heaviest volume in five months.

The Dow was down 168 points shortly after 10:00 am ET, only to close with a marginal loss. Even at its lowest point, the index was 900 points above its 50-day moving average.

Stocks are as overpriced as they've ever been, setting up for a crash of enormous proportions.

It's coming, but nobody knows when or why it will occur. The Fed is still insistent upon raising interest rates again in December, at a time at which the economy is neither growing fast enough to warrant such behavior nor robust enough to withstand repeated rate hikes.

Over the years, the Federal Reserve has caused more crashes and recessions than it will admit. Uncontrollable spending by government and cascading business and individual debt is reaching unprecedented heights, worse than preceding the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-09.

Extreme caution is advised.


At the Close, Tuesday, November 14, 2017:
Dow: 23,409.47, -30.23 (-0.13%)
NASDAQ: 6,737.87, -19.72 (-0.29%)
S&P 500: 2,578.87, -5.97 (-0.23%)
NYSE Composite: 12,280.11, -36.71 (-0.30%)

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