On Wall Street, Ignorance is Bliss

Take a look at the figures that came out this morning and somebody, please, anybody, explain why stocks are higher today:

Initial unemployment claims came in at 386,000, well above the consensus estimate of 365,000. There is no significant jobs creation in the United States, period.

Existing home sales were 4.37 million (annualized) in June, down from 4.62 million in May and below the estimate of 4.65 million. The housing market has not bottomed, will not bottom this year and probably won't bottom next year.

The Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index read an abysmal -12.9 in July, which is marginally better than the -16.6 posted in June, but still horrible, by any standards.

The Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators fell by 0.3 for June, again, below consensus.

This data all came on top of what's been a pretty pessimistic prior two weeks of data, yet the major indices all opened positive and floated above the unchanged line all day. The Dow Jones Industrials are up 842 points since July 4th, on essentially nothing but rumors and vapors.

Wall Street continues to disregard basic economic data that shows the economy is stalling out. They may be able to do that for a time, but they will not escape the eventual outcome.

Dow 12,943.36, -34.66 (0.27%)
NASDAQ 2,965.90, -23.30 (0.79%)
S&P 500 1,376.51, -3.73 (0.27%)
NYSE Composite 7,849.84, -18.75 (0.24%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,687,888,625
NYSE Volume 4,002,177,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2704-2843
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows:
WTI crude oil: 92.66, +2.79
Gold: 1,580.40, +9.60
Silver: 27.22, +0.12