Another Euro Deal, Another Knock Your Socks Off Rally

Being Friday, European leaders ended their two-day summit on a positive note - to wit: European leaders agreed to create a single supervisory body to oversee the eurozone's banks which could use the single currency area's rescue funds, the European Financial Stability Facility or European Stability Mechanism, to aid banks directly without adding to governments' debt.

Well, that nugget, around which the narrative goes something like, "this is a step closer to a fiscal union," but which in essence only makes it easier to shift money from one bailout fund to another and to respective countries' broken banking systems and still solves nothing in terms of the real debt crisis faced by the EU, was enough to send markets higher around the globe.

Beginning in the Far East, where stock indices rose in unison by 1.11% to 2.59% (except Malaysia, which was up only 0.31%), equity markets had one of their cheeriest sessions in weeks.

Once trading began in Europe, the noise was amplified, with stock indices up hugely. At the low end was the Swiss market, which gained 1.33% on the day, though Germany's DAX and France's CAC 40 were ahead by 4.33% and 4.75%, respectively, at the close. All of the markets were topped by Greece, which saw the Athex Composite bubble up by 5.88%.

By the time US markets were gearing up for their open, index futures were nearly limit up, with Dow futures pointing to a 200-point gain at the outset. Following Thursday's late day ramp-up, a systems pointed to a serious end-of-month short squeeze combined with the usual end-of-quarter window dressing, and the markets surely did not disappoint.

Stocks roared out of the gate and held their strong gains throughout the session, one of the best of 2012, ending a week of turmoil and apprehension with a powerful rally to take investors into the third quarter with a full head of steam.

The "new deal" in Europe, coming in the 19th summit since the financial crisis began, is set to be ratified by the participating countries and ready for implementation by July 9, which should come as welcome relief to Spain and its banking sector, which is in need of between 62 and 100 billion Euros in order to continue functioning and funding government debt.

While the suckers in stock markets around the world had themselves a field day, many know that this is only a day-trading profit environment and that within weeks, there will be more turmoil to roil markets, be it from US shores or the favored European flavor, which has become expert at sending markets lower on fear before propping them up with a summit, statement that all is well and a swift kick further down the road to the economic fiat money ponzi can.

Austerity being too much to handle for most Europeans, and growth a figment of supply-side thinkers' collective imaginations, the only solutiona the Euro-genii have come up with are more bailout funds lending to and from another within a framework of constantly-changing rules and procedures. Naturally, the effect of piling more debt upon already unpayable debt will eventually end in tears and currencies in tatters, but that result is seemingly being pushed as far out into the future as possible, all the while suspending the tenets of traditional economic thinking.

Well, at least the leaders in Europe are looking out for the "little people" by giving them a morale boost on a Friday afternoon... before taxing them into servitude by which to pay off the gigantic debt bubble being created. The people, primarily taxpayers - except in Greece, where tax avoidance is a national pastime - seem to be content with having more time to enjoy their little lives or prepare for the ultimate end of the fiat money regime, which must come, sooner, if not later.

One of the downsides of all this "feel good" economics being parlayed from the Fed to the Europeans and back again is that it is all inherently inflationary, and commodities didn't miss a step in joining into the all-asset-classes-ramp-up-free-for-all. Oil had one of the biggest one day jumps in history, and even the precious metals could not be contained in the short-squeezing euphoria.

But for now, it's all good. As the 1969 Peggy Lee hit, Is That All There Is, penned by the songwriting duo of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, so solemnly intoned, "...let's keep dancing, let's break out the booze and have a ball, if that's all there is..."

Here's Peggy:



Free houses for everybody, eventually.

Dow 12,880.09, +277.83 (2.20%)
NASDAQ 2,935.05, +85.56 (3.00%)
S&P 500 1,362.16, +33.12 (2.49%)
NYSE Composite 7,792.53, +195.02 (2.57%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,780,693,750
NYSE Volume 4,426,005,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4898-809
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WTI crude oil: 84.96, +7.27
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Silver: 27.58, +1.33