Stocks Gain in Yo-Yo Market

In keeping with the theme of this week's manipulation, er, trading, in the complete insider-protected day-trading megalomaical world of Wall Street, markets ticked higher again as only a smattering of news from across the Atlantic reached America's shores.

One might expect that should developments in Europe continue on their sliding downard trajectory, that America's media elite might impose some kind of blackout to prevent US markets from taking an equally-deserving dive.

Stocks got off to a slow start, but were quickly ramped higher by HFTs, hedgies and bank-owned brokerages, which took no heed of this week's higher initial unemployment claims: 386K, on expectations of 375K, after last week's mandatory revision (every week) from 377K to 380K.

CPI slipped 0.3%, a deflationary number, though the all-important (that's sarcasm, folks) Core CPI, excluding food and energy (which nobody really needs - more sarcasm) ticked up 0.3%.

The government's current account balance showed a deficit for the first quarter of $137.3B, which is something of a surprise, as the real numbers are likely much larger.

Stocks have kept to the meme of the week: down, up, down, up, and if Friday comes in with a red number, Money Daily will have correctly predicted the market move four straight days, having made no prediction for Monday. Magic!


Dow 12,651.91, +155.53 (1.24%)
Nasdaq 2,836.33, +17.72 (0.63%)
S&P 500 1,329.10, +14.22 (1.08%)
NYSE Composite 7,582.83, +76.41 (1.02%)
NYSE Volume 3,687,722,500
Nasdaq Volume 1,641,362,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3941-1661
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 62-57
WTI crude oil: 83.91, +1.29
Gold: 1,619.60, +0.20
Silver: 28.41. -0.53