ADP Jobs Miss; Stocks Lower; Markets Appear Exhausted

The best analyst assumptions on where markets might be heading are probably not going to impress anybody this year. As usual, the best and brightest of Wall Street had rosy calculations heading into the new year and so far none of them are anywhere close to the reality of 2015.

That reality has the Dow and S&P clinging to one to two percent gains for the year, with the NASDAQ roughly six percent underwater.

This morning's miss in the ADP privater jobs report for April set a sullen tone for equities, having already been battered on Tuesday. The middle of the week turned out to be no better, sending stocks further into the red.

ADP's report of 156,00 new jobs in April was well below the average estimate of 193,000, and was the lowest number since March of 2013. The ADP report sets the stage for the BLS April non-farm jobs report, due out Friday.

Stocks have run out of gas, this current bull market having become the second longest in history a few days back, but the central banks haven't run out of money to print out of thin air, a specialty that also is apparently running its course and running the global economy into the ground.

With summer heading its way and the outlook for a Fed tightening looking more and more dubious for June or even July, investors are beginning to take money off the table and head into cash or other, more stable assets, particularly bonds, art, gold, silver and oil.

For the most part, equities are overpriced and volumes have been thin. A serious correction could occur within days or weeks. With nothing but bad news and data hitting the street and foreign markets on a regular basis, the casino is quickly running out of chips as the players cash in and head out of town.

S&P 500: 2,051.12, -12.25 (0.59%)
Dow: 17,651.26, -99.65 (0.56%)
NASDAQ: 4,725.64, -37.58 (0.79%)

Crude Oil 44.05 +0.92% Gold 1,281.60 +0.56% EUR/USD 1.1487 +0.01% 10-Yr Bond 1.78 -0.89% Corn 377.75 -0.53% Copper 2.18 -0.14% Silver 17.42 +0.69% Natural Gas 2.14 +2.83% Russell 2000 1,113.13 -0.77% VIX 16.05 +2.88% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4501 +0.02% USD/JPY 107.0170 +0.02%