President Backs Cautiously Away from Syria; Markets Exultant

Tuesday night's address to the nation was - for lack of a better term - illusory.

While President Obummer tried his best to appear calm and in control, he was anything but. Russia's Vladimir Putin had outmaneuvered him on the Syria strike issue by proposing that Syria put its chemical weapons under supervision of international parties.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives was backing far, far away from the unpopular choice to attack Syria, "in a measured way," as Secretary of State John Kerry might put it. A no vote on whether to give the president the authority to attack Syria was all but certain in the House and might have faltered in the Senate as well.

Thus, laughably, the president advised congress to delay its vote on authorization for use of military force for two weeks. Issue settled. Syria will not be assaulted by US arms, the president saves some face and congress gets off the hook as well. There probably will never be a vote on authorization. The Syria chemical attacks, which the administration so vociferously denounced as brutal, heinous, inhume and so outside the realm of civilized conduct that the Syrian government needed to be punished for them, will be back page news by the end of tomorrow so that congress and the president can move onto what they were trying to cover up with a war strike: the budget and debt ceiling twin fiascos.

Those will come soon enough and command daily, screechy headlines from the breathless media whores, but before them, the Federal Reserve's FOMC meets next Tuesday and Wednesday, after which it will purportedly announce the great tapering, or, as it's being called on Wall Street, taper-lite, suggesting that the Fed will reduce its monthly bond purchases from $85 billion a month to somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 billion. Ho-hum. One supposes that the world can survive without an additional $10 billion of monthly liquidity. Somehow, we'll all find a way to survive.

With all these grand developments, Wall Street pros took the opportunity to ramp up stocks in advance of the next options expiry, in hopes that can can make another quick buck before the Fed pulls away the punch bowl.

The Dow was up another 135 points on the day, the third straight session in which the blue chip average was higher by more than 100 points, giving it a gain for the week, thus far, of 404 points. The NASDAQ and S&P were weighed down by Apple (AAPL), whose latest "earth-shaking" announcement was not any new products but merely enhancements and new pricing for existing ones. The stock was punished severely, down 26.93 points on the day.

Back at the Dow Industrials, the index will be reshuffled after the close of trade on September 20. Being kicked out are Bank of America (BAC), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Alcoa (AA), replaced by Nike (NKE), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Visa (V). Because of the way the index weights stocks, giving more weight to high-priced ones than low-priced ones, Goldman Sachs will become the third most-important stock on the Dow, with Visa becoming the second most-important.

In other words, with five financial firms now represented in the 30-stock index, get ready for Dow 20,000. There's no stopping it now, especially when the index can arbitrarily kick out losers and replace them with their favorite pump primers.

There is no honor, nor shame, amongst thieves.

Dow 15,326.60, +135.54 (0.89%)
Nasdaq 3,725.01, -4.01 (0.11%)
S&P 500 1,689.13, +5.14 (0.31%)
10-Yr Bond 2.92%, -0.04
NYSE Volume 3,341,576,250
Nasdaq Volume 1,679,120,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3573-2957
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 344-80
WTI crude oil: 107.56, +0.17
Gold: 1,363.80, -0.20
Silver: 23.17, +0.156

Syria Euphoria Sends Stocks Higher; Trading Volume Hits 15-Year Low

The Dow added more than 250 points over the past two days and the NASDAQ hit fresh 13-year highs, meaning only one thing: we're officially in vapor-land as S&P equity trading volume hits fresh 15-year lows.

Meanwhile, the Syria story gets more and more confusing and confounding, the President's address tonight at 9:00 pm EDT (we do hope he'll be on time for once) probably just adding more layers of confusion to this twisted international story presaging World War III, which is bound to happen anyway, one way or another, the crux of the argument being Iran's nuclear ambitions and the US (and Israel's) attempts to defuse them.

So, how's that 401K looking? Pretty peachy, huh? Well, that's until the authorities come to confiscate it as happened in Poland last week.

A major financial disruption is just weeks away, be it the default of Deutsche Bank on some of their massive, unregulated CDS, Italian bank defaults or maybe, just maybe a big resounding thud from the likes of JP Morgan, or, our favorite, Bank of America.

The system is completely stressed out, trading on razor-thin volume while Peace President O-Bomber gets an itchy finger over Syria and a false-flag operation that hasn't convinced anybody of anything. What could possibly go wrong?

Russia's Vladimir Putin is playing Obama like a banjo, plucking his strings with the talent of a virtuoso. Other outlets have compared the recent developments over Syria as Putin playing chess while OBozo struggles with checkers.

We think the analogy is apropos. The US government will soon be on its knees, begging forgiveness from a broken-hearted world and US population. There will be no mercy given to the betrayers of the constitution.

And, by the way, the NSA is FOS.

Dow 15,191.06, +127.94 (0.85%)
Nasdaq 3,729.02, +22.84 (0.62%)
S&P 500 1,683.99, +12.28 (0.73%)
10-Yr Bond 2.96%, +0.06
NYSE Volume 3,911,199,000
Nasdaq Volume 1,767,686,125
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4249-2265
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 403-52
WTI crude oil: 107.39, -2.13
Gold: 1,364.00, -22.70
Silver: 23.02, -0.701

For a Change, Some Gains; Stocks Nearly Recover Monday's Losses

Stocks shook off Monday's downdraft, nearly reversing all of Monday's losses, but not quite, and the effort was very half-hearted on low-to-average volume.

This was wholly expected, as markets seldom go straight up or down. Some buyers saw value in beaten-down names; banking stocks were particularly strong with names like Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) all sporting solid gains.

Stocks were buoyed by early-day catalysts in the form of fairly robust data on durable goods, the S&P/Case-Shiller residential real estate series and an exceptionally high level of consumer confidence of 81.4 from the Conference Board, the highest such reading since January of 2008, which is somewhat ironic, as that high confidence figure came just months before one of the worst stock market crashes in history and a lengthy, deep recession.

New home sales showed gains in May up from 466K in April, to 476K, though figures may be skewed somewhat as they are for signed contracts, not closings, and are for a reporting period prior to interest and mortgage rates rising.

The major indices are still in a dicey spot, well off the May 28 highs and showing losses for the month of June, historically the weakest month for stock returns. And, with August and September - also weak months by historical standards - just ahead, the stage is set for earnings to move the market one way or the other, though indications are that the second quarter will not be favorable for stocks. Pre-announcements are running 7-1 on the negative side, a chilling effect on taking positions in advance of earnings and perhaps an element of today's less-than-awe-inspiring one-day bounce.

Plenty of technical damage has been done to markets over the past 2 1/2 weeks and the Federal Reserve is employing the only pokicy tool it has remaining - jawboning the market by trotting out one Fed governor after another with carefully crafted speech-lines, jokingly referred to as the "other" FOMC, or Federal Open Mouth Committee.

The question of the day was whether good news on the economy is actually bad news for stocks, insofar as Bernanke has promised to taper bond purchases if the economy shows strength, a move that in all likelihood will continue the rise in rates and place bonds in a much better position, vis-a-vis stocks. If such is the case, the market should have turned lower, but the recent selling prevented that, though in the back of every traders mind, the new reality of a market without artificial stimulus from the Fed looms largely.

Dow 14,760.31, +100.75 (0.69%)
NASDAQ 3,347.89, +27.13 (0.82%)
S&P 500 1,588.03, +14.94 (0.95%)
NYSE Composite 8,996.01, +103.98 (1.17%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,556,236,875
NYSE Volume 3,720,042,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4983-1582
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 105-185
WTI crude oil: 95.32, +0.14
Gold: 1,275.10, -2.00
Silver: 19.53, +0.033

Dow Hits Five-Year High; Why Isn't Anyone Celebrating?

Money has to go somewhere, and today it went straight into equities, pushing the Dow to a five-year high.

Whether or not this euphoric advance was based on anything more than the Fed's continuing POMO operations remains to be seen.

Housing starts and building permits for December were figuratively "through the roof," though on Main Street America, people are wondering just who it is that is buying all these new homes.

In the real economy - the one that functions on dollars and cents, not swaps, repos, debt financing and accounting fantasies - it still feels like a recession. Stores are largely empty, incomes are still declining overall and the bulk of the US consumer class has just been hit with a 2% tax increase, thanks to the assembled dunces in congress and at the White House.

Unemployment claims today came in at a multi-month low of 335,000, though continuing claims increased from 3127K to 3214K in one week, so, something at the BLS isn't quite adding up, though that's largely been the case since 2006 or before.

The Philadelphia Fed index of economic activity printed a -5.8 for the current month, following a positive 4.6 in December. This reading comes on the heels of Empire Manufacturing (NY state) showing a -7.8 after a -7.3.

If none of this makes any sense to you, consider that Boeing (BA), after having all of their 787 "Dreamliners" (make that "Nightmare Flight") grounded by the FAA (note: this is after years and years of delays and missed deadlines), shares of the nation's top plane builder finished up 92 cents (1.24%).

Beyond that, ZeroHedge notes that if you strip out the gains made by Bank of America - the top performing Dow stock of 2012 - for releasing loan loss reserves (an accounting trick), the bank actually lost something on the order of $2.5 billion last year.

Regular readers (or at least those who check the stats at the bottom of each post) will take note that new highs - new lows has today reached the pinnacle of absurdity.

Even in the very, very, very best of times there were always more than eight stocks hitting new 52-week lows, it's only natural in a normal, competitive environment. The number of new lows since the first of the year has been hovering in the teems for the most part. The money gushing from the Federal Reserve to the primary dealers to the stock market is causing the most unbalanced market ever witnessed.

And the debt ceiling increase that needs to be approved, but just seems to sit there, like a 300000000-ton weight over the US economy, ah, don't worry about that. Our "leaders" will find a way to ix that, certainly, positively, without a doubt.

We live in Wonderland. Sadly, only those who pad their wallets on Wall Street get to be either the Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter or Alice.

Dow 13,596.02, +84.79 (0.63%)
NASDAQ 3,136.00, +18.46 (0.59%)
S&P 500 1,480.98, +8.31 (0.56%)
NYSE Composite 8,766.54, +55.98 (0.64%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,734,349,250
NYSE Volume 3,966,953,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4628-1787
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 525-8
WTI crude oil: 95.49, +1.25
Gold: 1,690.80, +7.60
Silver: 31.81, +0.268

Wall Street and Washington's Theater of the Absurd

To say that the market is comical might be a bit of an understatement, as, under the current regime of endless QE, ZIRP, no-loss corporate interests and unlimited cash funding for all manner of speculation the entity that used to be known as the "stock market" is a sad comedy with wickedly tragic undertones.

Amidst the furor over "fiscal cliff" issues, Wall Street has managed to keep a straight face, as have most commentators and analysts, but today's activity was right out of the old PPT handbook.

Despite early morning futures pump-priming, actually solid economic data and no progress in Washington, stocks found themselves slumped into negative territory at 11:00 am ET.

However, this being a market typified by HFT and wing-and-a-prayer whimsical day-trading, that point in time marked low tide for the day.

Without warning and on absolutely no relevant news (we searched and searched and could not find a suitable catalytic argument), the Dow Industrials surged a massive 150 points in the next hour, making a v-bottom u-turn that was dazzling if for only its rapidity.

The news wires were touting the move as inspired by Bank of America, and, to a lesser extent, Citigroup, which today announced layoffs of 11,000, sending that stock up 2.17 (6.33%). It's a counter-intuitive world when slashing jobs causes such a huge run-up, but this is, after all, the bizarre world of Wall Street, where profits supersede humanity. BofA, for its part, surged 56 cents, to 10.46, a new 52-week high. The only caveat for the TBTF banks might be that they are in the midst of another round of stress tests, and, apparently, are set to receive passing grades despite having a multitude of unresolved bad debts residing both on and off their balance sheets.

Finally marking its zenith with a 137-point advance, the Dow meandered along through the afternoon, finally giving up the charade late in the session by cutting its gains nearly in half. The other laughable part was Apple (AAPL) which was hammered once again by profit-takers, taking down the NASDAQ - which remained in the red all session long - with it.

It's fairly common knowledge that over the past four years, rallies led by banks hae a kind of phantom character to them. Since banking's books are so opaque, only the select circle of insiders really know how to value them, and said values may or may not be realistic. Time only will tell.

Belying the rally, the advance-decline line was negative and the margin of new highs over new lows continued to tighten.

Meanwhile, Washington did its part to keep the comical nature of events going strong. Congressional members largely departed the Capitol at noon today, apparently having nothing to do and opting for a long weekend. Yes, a long weekend, just prior to what's planned to be a three-week holiday holiday beginning December 14.

Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

-- Lord Byron

Dow 13,034.49, +82.71 (0.64%)
NASDAQ 2,973.70, -22.99 (0.77%)
S&P 500 1,409.28, +2.23 (0.16%)
NYSE Composite 8,270.43, +46.56 (0.57%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,747,690,750
NYSE Volume 4,086,650,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2641-2821
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 121-65
WTI crude oil: 87.88, -0.62
Gold: 1,693.80, -2.00
Silver: 32.96, +0.149

Obama Wins; Stock Market Sinks on Tax Hike, Fiscal Cliff Fears, Europe

Tuesday was an early night in terms of presidential politics as President Barack Obama was elected overwhelmingly to a second term, whipping Republican challenger in almost every battleground state and winning the popular vote handily.

With the vote in Florida still being tallied (anybody surprised?), the Sunshine State turned out to be mostly inconsequential as the president swept the key states of Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania (which never really was in play), New Hampshire, Colorado and Nevada. Romney's sole win in the so-called "swing states" was in North Carolina, a state which Obama took by a narrow 0.3% in 2008.

Once the midwest states of Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio were declared for Obama, the race was over, but it wasn't until after midnight in the East that Mitt Romney gave his concession speech and later, President Obama gave a ripping, rhetorical speech extolling the virtues of freedom of choice, tolerance and working together toward shared goals and the great creation of our founders, the United States of America, individual states bound together by social compact.

In the House and Senate races, the makeup of congress remained largely the same, with Republicans dominating the House and Democrats strengthening their grip on the senate, winning key races in Virginia, Florida, and, especially, Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Warren, the fiery consumer rights advocate, took the seat away from Republican incumbent Scott Brown, in a major setback for big banks.

Warren, who worked on TARP and other reforms in Washington, especially the implementation of a consumer protection division at the Federal Reserve, will likely end up on the Senate banking Committee, possibly winning the chairmanship.

Another critical Senate race was won in Connecticut by Christopher Murphy, who defeated Linda McMahon, who wrestling millionaire who spent $100 million on her own campaign.

Jon Tester retained his Senate seat from Montana in a close race with Republican challenger Denny Rehberg, keeping the balance of power firmly in their control with 55 seats, along with one independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The Democrats likely gained another ally when former governor, independent Angus King of Maine, won an open Senate seat that had been held by Republican Olympia Snowe. King has not indicated which party he would caucus with, though most believe it will be with Democrats. King won on the simple idea of making filibusters less of an effective measure in killing legislation, believing that excessive filibustering by Senate Republicans had blocked almost all significant legislation over the past four years.

There was little change in the House, as Reublicans retained control with 232 seats to 191 held by Democrats with a number of vacancies.

It wasn't long before other voices began to be heard, especially those on Wall Street who had been counting on a win by Republican Romney. Before the market opened, futures began a steep decline, though the catalyst may have nad more to do with comments by ECB president Mario Draghi and some dismal production figures from Germany, regarded as a stronghold in the recession-plagued continent.

Shortly after Germany's industrial production was reported to have fallen 1.2% in September, Draghi said that the crisis in Europe was beginning to take its toll on the industrial powerhouse that is the German economy.

Heading into the first post-election session, Dow futures were pointing toward a loss of more than 100 points at the open, and the result was worse, with the 132-point gain from Tuesday wiped out in the opening minute.

Stocks continued their descent until bottoming out just before noon, down 369 points, the biggest decline of the year, though some strengthening took all of the indices off their lows as the day progressed.

Still, the losses were dramatic and especially in the banking sector, where ank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and other big bank concerns were off more than five percent. All 10 S&P sectors finished in the red, the S&P could not defend the 1400 level and nearly bounced off its 200-day moving averages, the NASDAQ - aided by Apple's continued decline into bear market territory - broke down below its 200-DMA and the Dow closed below its 200-DMA for the first time since the beginning of June.

In Greece, rioters threw fire bombs at police in anticipation of another vote on austerity measures designed to pave the way for another round of financing from the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB. The vote, scheduled for midnight in Greece (5:00 pm ET), is expected to pass, though the populace has seemingly had enough of policies dictated by outsiders.

For Wall Street, the day presented a perfect storm of disappointment, fears of higher taxes on dividends, tighter regulations of banks, uncertainty over tax and spending policies heading into 2013, and renewed concerns over our trading partners in Europe.

The steep declines may have only been a beginning, however, as no policies have changed, and, actually, the political makeup in Washington remained the same as it had been the day before. The continued gridlock coming from the White House and Capitol Hill may be the most disconcerting factor of all.

Some internal damage was done to markets, with the advance-decline line showing a nearly 5-1 edge for losers and new highs being surpassed by new lows, 94-174.

With none of the important initiatives nearing resolution, there seems to be nowhere for the market to go but down, now that the election is over, earnings season is just about finished and the market must focus on fundamentals and locking in gains for the year. The remainder of 2012 may prove to be quite challenging to investors.

Dow 12,932.73, -312.95 (2.36%)
NASDAQ 2,937.29, -74.64 (2.48%)
S&P 500 1,394.53, -33.86 (2.37%)
NYSE Composite 8,138.80, -173.55 (2.09%)
NASDAQ Volume 4,322,112,500
NYSE Volume 2,059,028,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 961-4613
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 94-174
WTI crude oil: 84.44, -4.27
Gold: 1,714.00, -1.00
Silver: 31.66, -0.373

15 Global Banks Downgraded by Moody's; Stocks Rally (Really!)

Wrapping up the week that was, it can truly be said that the level of fraud and deceit by the banks and brokerages is matched only by the complacency of the general public.

Fifteen major global banks were downgraded by Moody's late Thursday afternoon - after markets had closed, though news of the downgrades had been leaking out all say - setting up denial central, in which the very banks' downgraded criticized Moody's for being, among other things, "unwarranted," "arbitrary," and "backward-looking." Too bad these scammers can't take honest medicine, even from a firm that is purportedly "one of their own."

Readers should recall that during the sub-prime scams of 2005-09, Moody's was one of the select ratings firms that deemed the obtuse and overtly fraudulent residential MBS as AAA-rated.

In an outlandish market reaction, financials led Friday's early advance. So much for fundamental analysis. Ratings, upgrades and downgrades now count for about as much as Jamie Dimon's hat size, which we have heard is rather enormous.

The list of downgrades (which took more than a half hour's time to locate) includes Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Credit Suisse Group AG, HSBC Holdings, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Royal Bank of Canada, Societe Generale and UBS AG. That's all 15, though Moody's website features a grand runaround to find the list including the actual levels of downgrades (we gave up because apparently, this information is not conducive to the free flow of information and markets).

In a fitting riposte, Max Keiser channels Friedrich Neitzsche in this interview, intoning, in the finest guttural indignation, "Banks are Dead!"



Stocks registered broad gains during the session, especially on the NASDAQ, which outpaced the other indices handily. Volume was heavy.

In closing, our steadfastness in calling banking and financial institutions criminal enterprises is often chided, but sometimes brought to light as truth. In a fascinating story by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, the details of how Wall Street gangsters (dressed like bankers) skimmed millions of dollars from states, cities, towns and villages all across America is revealed.

OK, just one more: Our friends at Zero Hedge report that the ECB Officially Announces Easing Of Collateral Rules, essentially confirming that Europe has run out of assets.

Go easy on the champagne, kids, and have a great weekend!

Dow 12,640.78, +67.21 (0.53%)
NASDAQ 2,892.42, +33.33 (1.17%)
S&P 500 1,335.02, +9.51 (0.72%)
NYSE Composite 7,616.59, +50.48 (0.67%)
NASDAQ Volume 2,801,777,000
NYSE Volume 4,210,423,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3892-1703
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 117-81
WTI crude oil: 79.76, +1.56
Gold: 1,566.90, +1.40
Silver: 26.66, -0.18

March Market Madness: BofA's Own to Rent Plan; Apple Flash Crash, BATS batty IPO

College basketball's 68-team NCAA national championship tournament (AKA March Madness) has nothing on US stock markets in terms of sheer insanity and hair-raising antics.

Just when you think it can't get any weirder in our manipulated, over-hyped markets, along comes a day like today to convince you that the absurd is now the new normal.

To start things off, Bank of America announced a plan to "invite" roughly 1000 homeowners in default on their mortgages the chance to rent the home they formerly owned.

Think of it. BofA can now use the catchy, "Rent a Piece of the American Dream" as the tag line for what they're calling, subtly, the Mortgage to Lease Program. No lie. The bank that bought Countrywide Financial and all their horrible sub-prime, Alt-A, no-doc and NINJA loans, now wants to slither out from under the rock of the robo-signing scandal, fraudulent mortgage documentation and a host of other evils, by forgiving the original loan and renting the house back to the (former) mortgagor.

The absurdity of this plan, whereby people who can't afford their mortgage payments, are somehow supposed to be able to afford rent, or even want to, in the very same home they've been living in for free for two or three years or longer, is so over the top, some people might even buy into it. The Bank of America plan is to take title to the homes, tear up the old documents (supposedly before said homeowners rush to the nearest federal courthouse, documents in hand, and file fraud charges), pay the property taxes, rent the property back to the homeowners (or squatters, if you like), at - get this - rent that's less than the original monthly mortgage payment, then flip the house, along with the paying (below market rates) tenants to some investment gang. Are there real estate investors that dumb out there?

There are so many flaws to this abhorrent plan that it is hardly worth discussing, though actual landlords - real people who own and manage rental properties - have been laughing about it all day long. And, of course, the bank won't sully its pristine reputation by dirtying its hands with the mundane tasks of landlording, like maintaining the lawns, fixing leaks and making modest improvements. No, for that, they'll hire professional property managers, adding even more cost.

The plan is supposed to roll out shortly in the states of Nevada, Arizona and New York as a pilot program. Pilot, indeed. This plan is going to crash and burn on the runway. All of this sound and fury is designed for only one purpose: to save face and costly lawsuits, now that people have awakened to the criminality and fraud that Countrywide started and Bank of America openly perpetuated. They'd be much better off and propbably millions of dollars ahead if they'd just give the properties to the people living in them and simply walk away.

With that as a background, the housing market made more ugly noises on Friday when the Commerce Department reported that new home sales fell for the second straight month, dropping 1.6% in February, despite unusually warm weather, great for home-hunting and generational low mortgage rates.

Then there was Apple's flash crash, blamed on a fat-finger trade for 100 shares well below the market price on a trading platform known as BATS, which, incidentally, went public today, but after all of one trade, shut itself down due to technical difficulties, canceling its IPO indefinitely, which, if today's performance was any indication of the quality and integrity of its service, will likely be forever.

As if that wasn't enough, today marked the absolute thinnest volume in the last ten years. It was completely dreadful, yet stocks still finished with meagre gains, though down for the week. Ouch!

Dow 13,080.73, +34.59 (0.27%)
NASDAQ 3,067.92, +4.60 (0.15%)
S&P 500 1,397.11, +4.33 (0.31%)
NYSE Composite 8,180.05, +38.72 (0.48%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,400,164,125
NYSE Volume 3,395,163,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3848-1709 (that's WACK!)
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 133-28
WTI crude oil: 106.87, +1.52
Gold: 1,662.40, +19.90
Silver: 32.27, +0.93

Bankster Kleptocrats At It Again: Bank Stocks Up, Gold, Silver Down

One of the more tried and true methods of tape-watching is what's known in the business as "follow-through" - the tell-tale next day move in a stock or an index following a bold rally.

A lack of follow-through or extension of the rally usually means that the initial move was either false, poorly-constructed, had less-than-optimal participation or a combination of all of those.

If the tape is correct the day after the biggest one-day upside move in stocks this year, then today's trading certainly did little to confirm the veracity of the rally. With the Dow and NASDAQ up marginally at best, the slight decline in the S&P and the pretty healthy drop on the NYSE Composite reveal the tell-tale signs of a market rally surred on entirely by insiders, those of the Wall Street bankster crowd commonly known as the kleptocracy.

Their aim, obviously, was to instill a desire for individual investors to jump into those juicy big bank stocks like Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sach (GS) and everybody's favorite, Citigroup (C), which incidentally was one of the four which failed the Fed's marginally-constructive stress tests on Tuesday.

The other fairly obvious feature of the Tuesday rally was the often overlooked calendar, which shows clearly that Friday is the third Friday of the month, meaning, yes, siree!, Tuesday's move was decidedly correlated to making oodles of cash on front-end, expiring call options.

Want proof? Take a look at the imbalance of open interest puts to calls on the 40 and 41 strikes of Friday's expiring options in JP Morgan. There were nearly 69,000 calls at those two strike prices, compared to about 25,000 puts. Since we all know there's no free lunch in America - unless you're a school-kid with cheap parents or a bankster will plenty of one-percenter street cred - the imbalance should be a tip as to what happened late yesterday afternoon, when Jamie Dimon jumped the shark and released his firm's (JPM) dividend upgrade before the Fed could expel the stress tests of the other banks. Talk about front-running! Jaime wrote the book with that move.

And for more proof, look below at the Advance-Decline line for today. The rally was definitely sold into by money smarter than that of most people. Volume was at its usual dismal level again today as well.

Just in case anyone thinks the Fed's stress tests were anything more than a call to action from the Fed to individual investors who don't believe a word that comes from ben Bernanke's mouth, one should definitely take a read of Chris Whalen's excellent article at Zero Hedge, Bank Stress Tests and Other Acts of Faith

One needn't be a bank examiner or financial wizard to understand what Whalen means when he says things like,

So when I look at the Fed stress tests, which seem to be the result of a mountain of subjective inputs and assumptions, the overwhelming conclusion is that these tests are meant to justify past Fed policy.

or

But as we have written over the past several weeks in The Institutional Risk Analyst, the Fed does not want to believe that there is a problem with real estate.

Face it, the Fed's stress tests of 19 of the nation's largest banks were nothing more than a pimp act for their favorite bailout buddies, designed to boost their share prices so insiders could profit at the expense of smaller, less-savvy investors and traders.

If that wasn't enough - and you know it wasn't - the raid on gold and silver today speaks volumes about the un-American policies the Fed pursues. According to the Fed, holding near-worthless scraps of paper like stock certificates of shares in illiquid banks or constantly-devaluing Federal Reserve Notes is far more prudent for us "little people" (or as Goldman Sachs executives like to call their clients, "muppets") than holding onto those relics of the past, gold and silver.

The gloves are off, folks. The Fed, the banksters, the kleptocracy of corporate America has had them off for a long time, bare-knuckling the American middle class like a punch-drunk patsy. It's time Americans with brains (maybe 30% or so of the population) rip off the Everlasts and land a roundhouse on the chops of these wealth thieves.

Close out the 401k, pension plan or whatever vehicle they're "managing" your money in and go buy some silver coins or bars, gold, or land, raise some chickens or pigs, grow some corn or tomatoes or broccoli, but at least stop putting your money into the wall Street Ponzi scheme.

That's going to be easier said than done for a lot of people who have their futures tied into their government sponsored pension plans, which, by the way, will pay out a lot less than expected when the s--- hits the fan, but, if the outflows from mutual funds over the past four years is any indication, you don't want to be one of the last players in the market (otherwise known as bagholders) when the rugs gets pulled out and the bottom drops out of the bottomless pit the financial "industry" has created.

It could be two years, two months or two weeks before the next market "event" but you don't want to be around when it happens and you definitely don't want it all to fall on your pretty little head, now do you?

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the moves in bonds, and why what they're telling us is very, very bad.

Dow 13,194.33, +16.65 (0.13%)
NASDAQ 3,040.73, +0.85 (0.03%)
S&P 500 1,394.28, -1.67 (0.12%)
NYSE Composite 8,180.17 54.30 (0.66%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,627,102,500
NYSE Volume 4,446,792,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1631-4036
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 318-38
WTI crude oil: 105.43, -1.28
Gold: 1,642.90, -51.30
Silver: 32.18, -1.40

Amazing Stock Market Rally Rolls Along

One of the oldest adages of stock market investing is the time-honored, "the markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent," or something to that effect.

This is particularly poignant in the midst of the current Wall Street "melt-up" which has been ongoing since the middle of December and shows little sign of letting up.

While corporate earnings continue to flow, the latest being from two big banks, Morgan Stanley (MS) and Bank of America (BAC), both of which met or exceeded expectations, though the accounting tricks and tactics employed by the mega-banks leave much to the imagination.

As far as Bank of America is concerned, their beat of expectations of 13 cents per share with a reported 15 cents included a bunch of one-time items and useful reserve and loan loss calculations, embedded deep within their monstrous 110-page quarterly report. Despite the discrepancies in the quarterly, Bank of America bounced higher again today, closing at 6.95, a 15 cent gain, after popping above $7 per share for the first time since Warren Buffett invested $5 billion in the bank in early 2011.

Morgan Stanley actually lost money for the quarter, but lost quite a bit less than expected. The firm’s net loss was $250 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with profit of $836 million, or 41 cents, a year earlier. The consensus expectation was for a loss of 57 cents per share. Traders took the data in stride, boosting the stock to its highest level since October. In this case, even P.T. Barnum would be proud, noting that "there's a sucker born every minute." All the better for momentum chasers in this beat-up financial.

There was a dose of economic data that surprised some and annoyed others, notably bearish investors. Initial unemployment claims came in at a sparkling 352,000 - the lowest number in months - after last week's upwardly revised 402,000. The unemployment figures continue to be a topic of some debate, in that the "seasonally-adjusted" model used by the BLS seems to have forgotten that December was holiday season, chock full of part time and temporary hires. Whatever the case, traders seemed less-than-satisfied with the numbers, as the markets began slowly but ground slowly higher through the session.

December CPI came in flat, after yesterday's -0.1% drop in the PPI, sparking fears of "disinflation" (a Federal reserve governor term) or deflation, the bogey man that haunts Fed chairman Ben Benanke.

Housing starts and building permits were flat to lower, though new home builders have been leading this rally, up more than 10% as a group since the first of the year.

How much longer can the rally last? Tomorrow being options expiration, one would think a major sell-off is in the cards for either Friday afternoon or Monday, though, as stated at the top of this piece, rationality is generally not a hallmark of recent rallies.

If you've not already taken part in this wild market ride, it may be a little late. Stocks are getting extremely overbought, as the advance-decline and new highs vs. new lows figures have been telegraphing lately.

Adding to the upside has been the unusually quiet tones coming out of Europe, as opposed to the rather hysterical daily dispatches that typified the latter half of 2011. Nothing's really changed over there, except perception, perhaps. Europe is mostly headed for a recession, which will hit the middle classes, though Greece, in particular, in already in the throes of a fiscal straightjacket which some might say is emulating a full-blown depression. To the Greeks, most of europe is saying "pay up," to which the Greeks respond with "shut up" or some other suitable and more demonstrable phraseology.

The long and short of it, if one is of the camp that believes a strong stock market is a proxy for a strong general economy, 2012 is shaping up to be a banner year or at least a good effort at kicking the can of economic woes down the road until after the elections in November.

Throwing a bit of cold water on the rally parade, as expected, Eastman Kodak (EK) filed for bankruptcy protection today, and Republican presidential nominee hopeful Mitt Romney has been found to have a number of accounts and holdings in off-shore banks, notably in the Cayman Islands, setting the stage - if he's the nominee - for a battle of ideologies between him as the ultimate one percenter and President Obama as the champion of the 99%.

While that may make for great TV, it's hardly honest, as President O'banker is about as 1% elitist as one can get without actually admitting to it.

Dow 12,625.19, +46.24 (0.37%)
NASDAQ 2,788.33, +18.62 (0.67%)
S&P 500 1,314.50, +6.46 (0.49%)
NYSE Composite 7,819.36, +52.41 (0.67%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,974,862,250
NYSE Volume 4,442,754,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3454-2119
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 261-26 (yes, 10-1 is a bit extreme)
WTI crude oil: 100.39, -0.20
Gold: 1,654.50, -5.40
Silver: 30.51, -0.03

Stocks Continue Relentless March Higher Despite Poor Economic Data

Once again, US equities finished the day on an upbeat tone, though data hardly suggests that the economy is either robust or growing rapidly. In fact, two releases prior to the market open were depressing enough to send stocks to morning lows out of the open.

Retail Sales for December were nothing short of a disaster, rising a mere 0.1% on expectations of a 0.4% boost, putting an end to the fiction that was widely spouted around financial circles, that holiday sales were brisk and consumers had their wallets wide open during the festive season.

Ex-autos, retail sales were even worse, down 0.2% (maybe those annoying Lexus Christmas commercials were good for something after all) on epectations of a 0.3% gain.

Business inventories were tighter, growing at a modest 0.3% in December after being up 0.8% in November. The drawdown during Christmas season will have consequences, especially involving calculations of 4th quarter 2011 GDP, and, if it continues, 1st quarter 2012 figures as well.

Perhaps the scariest number of the morning came from the wholly-discredited BLS, with their weekly report on initial unemployment claims, which came in much higher than the expected 375,000, bumping up to 399,000, which no doubt will be revised upward above 400,000 next week. From the data, it certainly seems to make sense that the BLS numbers are not properly seasonally-adjusted, and that many of those holiday season jobs were just that, seasonal, as in not permanent.

The uptake on the data is that American retailers are in deep trouble, consumers aren't about to rush out and buy just because they have a few extra dollars in their wallets or purses, and good, well-paying jobs are still on the horizon of imagination.

All of those assumptions did not deter Wall Street from boosting stock prices for the fifth time in eight trading sessions this new year. The reason would most likely be in the belief that Europe's debt crisis is all but solved, following an ECB announcement of no movement in interest rates and better-than-expected results in Spanish and Italian bond auctions. As usual, traders will hang their collective hats on any data that supports the cause of endless money printing and higher and higher stock prices, in the belief that a strong stock market is a good reflection of the overall economic picture, which is pure folly.

Large bankruptcies are on the rise, indicating a resumption of the financial fallout from 2008. With Kodak already on the ropes and possibly days away from a formal bankruptcy announcement, Hostess, the maker of Twinkies, Ding-Dongs and other high fructose snacks, filed bankruptcy on Wednesday.

The next victim is likely to be Sears Holdings. Lender CIT, the firm now headed by the nefarious John Thain, has made it clear that vendors to Sears and K-Mart will no longer receive financing or payment guarantees. Thain, who was the last CEO of Merrill Lynch before it was forced upon Bank of America, was one of the leading banking figures responsible for much of the 2008 financial crash.

Apparently, Thain has found new life as a vulture, now circling the bond holdings and other assets of Sears.

On the real estate front, all the buzz is over the government plan - first suggested by the Federal Reserve, which is holding reams and reams of near-worthless RMBS - to turn Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac foreclosures into rental properties. The two failed GSEs became the lenders of last resort and have back-handedly bailed out the nation's biggest banks by buying back much of the worthless mortgages still sitting somewhere off the books of JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells-Fargo.

Many of the same firms who caused the financial and mortgage miasma in the first place are now lining up to buy the foreclosed properties at rock-bottom prices and turn America into a nation of renters. Deustche Bank, Fortress Capital, Barclays Capital, Neuberger Berman Group, Ranieri Partners and UBS are among firms interested in becoming property owners and managers. Good luck with that. Like all other attempts to inject new life into the failed housing market this program will be the subject of great scrutiny and consternation from American citizens, many of whom were forced out of their homes during the late 2000s.

Naturally, these vulture capitalists will get to cherry pick the foreclosures, largely at the expense of the US taxpayer. Outrage should begin forming from groups like the Occupy movement and others within weeks. The government will likely present the program as a jobs-building incentive when in reality it is nothing less than a well-conceived plan to fleece Americans as renters since virtually nobody can qualify for a mortgage these days.

Dow 12,471.02, +21.57 (0.17%)
NASDAQ 2,724.70, +13.94 (0.51%)
S&P 500 1,295.50, +3.02 (0.23%)
NYSE Composite 7,681.26, +19.28 (0.25%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,662,562,500
NYSE Volume 3,939,928,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3397-2175
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 166-40
WTI crude oil: 99.10, -1.77
Gold: 1,647.70, +8.10
Silver: 30.12, +0.23

European Banks Borrow $639 Billion From ECB; Oracle Tanks Techs

Santa Claus came and went. Apparently, his next stop was in Europe, where today, 523 struggling banks on the continent grabbed for $639 billion (489 billion euros) from the ECB's newest lending facility, which offered a sweetheart of a deal: 1% interest over three years. We should all be so lucky.

The huge amount of borrowing was frowned upon in the US. As the news hit America's shores, futures went into the tank on the perception that the amount borrowed was much higher than originally forecast and the sneaking suspicion that although the European banking system was obviously weak, it actually was in much worse shape than originally thought.

Stocks sent almost the entire day underwater, as poor results from Oracle last night after the close sent shock waves through the tech sector. Though the Dow, which was down as many as 104 points, and the S&P finished marginally positive, the NASDAQ ended the day with a serious loss, though it too cut its losses roughly in half by day's end.

In Washington, there was still no progress on the bill which would keep the current social security payroll deduction at current levels and also extend unemployment benefits to about two million people, as the House of Representatives announced their work for the week completed.

The bill was soundly passed in the Senate, and rejected by the House, mostly along party lines.

Also in Washington today, the Justice Department announced a $335 million settlement with Bank of America (BAC), stemming from a DofJ claim that Countrywide - since acquired by Bank of America - discriminated against over 200,000 black and Hispanic mortgage borrowers by charging them higher rates and fees than white homeowners.

While the settlement was the largest of its kind ever, the amount is a mere pittance in comparison to the economic damage wrought by Countrywide and other lenders during the mortgage and housing bust. BofA will pay the money directly to the government and the DofJ will supposedly dole out the proceeds to individuals and families affected by the discriminatory practices.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who seems to only show up after his department settles a case, said, "With today’s settlement, the federal government will ensure that the more than 200,000 African-American and Hispanic borrowers who were discriminated against by Countrywide will be entitled to compensation.”

It should be amusing to track exactly where that money goes.

There are just two more trading sessions before Christmas, three shopping days and a total of seven trading sessions remaining in 2011. Most investors can't wait for the year to end, as stocks have flat-lined for the most part and actually are well off the highs set in late April.

Dow 12,107.74, +4.16 (0.03%)
NASDAQ 2,577.97, -25.76 (0.99%)
S&P 500 1,243.72, +2.42 (0.19%)
NYSE Composite 7,388.52, +27.55 (0.37%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,866,553,125
NYSE Volume 3,574,281,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3153-2488
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 194-95
WTI crude oil: 98.67, +1.43
Gold: 1,613.60, -4.00
Silver: 29.25, -0.29

The Instant Market: Draghi and Bank of America Take It Down Two Notches

Once again, we are treated to the new reality of the "instant market" wherein news, or rumor, directs the flow of funds into or out of select equities, and today's catalysts were, as usual, from Europe (must have some news from Europe to move markets: it's the law) and oddly enough, from our old friends at Bank of America (BAC).

First, Europe. US markets opened with some hope and small gains across the indices. That was, until shortly after 10:00 New York time, when ECB President Mario Draghi commented that the ECB would not step up it's bond purchases, noting that monetary financing of states was not part of the treaty upon which the EU was formed. (Imagine, a world political leader actually sticking to what was agreed upon. A novel approach.)

That took the markets down a big notch, with the Dow, after hitting its highs of the day earlier - up 60 points - falling a full 120 points - to down 60 - in about an hour's time after Draghi's comments.

Draghi also said that any talk of the Euro-zone breaking apart were "morbid" and that the Euro was going to remain intact as a viable currency. He punted this gem:

I have no doubts whatsoever about the strength of the euro, about its permanence, about its irreversibility. But you have a lot of people, especially outside the euro area, who spend a lot of time in what I call morbid speculation.

While Draghi may be right about the morbidity part, the thought that the Euro is irreplaceable or inviolate is nothing more than CYA job protection. He's paid to oversee the ECB, and talking up the currency is part of his job. Somebody ought to hand Draghi a history book. Greece fell, Rome fell, Germany rose and fell a couple of times, at least. Nothing lasts forever, and, with only 11 years of history under its belt, the Euro is experiencing something of a severe confidence crisis, if not a complete failure by some of its constituents.

Most of those "morbid" speculators give the Euro another six to eighteen months, tops. And while it may indeed survive, and prove Draghi correct in the near term, it's another bad idea stemming from too many government bureaucrats attempting to furnish a centrally-planned socialist solution where none was needed. In many ways, the Euro resembles the Medicare/Medicade mess in the US, wherein the government stepped all over the established free market to create a system that is out of control and benefits mostly large medical insurance companies instead of real people with health care needs. The Euro was supposed to affect the entire continent in magical, positive ways. It has, thus far, produced a great deal of pain, financial inequities and sparked a world-wide crisis, even though that crisis was well underway, being all about fiat money anyway.

Stocks drifted along until about 3:00 pm ET when the PPT or whomever was hitting the bid - for hours - on Bank of America at 5.00 - 5.03, stopped, failed and rolled over. The bank that many equate with the financial collapse of 2008, hit a fresh, 33-month low, hitting 4.92 prior to closing at 4.99, an important figure, since many funds, by charter, cannot trade in stocks priced under 5.00, or must severely limit the size of their investment in such low-priced equities.

With banks under pressure the entire session, the demise of BAC took the whole market down the second notch, into the close. So much for recovery, at least by the "well-capitalized" US banks, whose ledgers are an indecipherable miasma of imaginary valuations, off-balance-sheet assets and liabilities and mark-to-model fantasies. With books so complex and confusing most CPAs don't understand them and after relentless support from the federal government (much of it in secret), is there any doubt that most stock pickers have shied away from US financial stocks as a whole?

Bank of America, along with Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase, to name just a few, should have been broken up in 2008-09, when they were insolvent (and still are, largely), though that would have ended the near-total dominance of the Federal Reserve and its constituents over all transactions in the US economy and beyond, and the rich bankers and their supporters simply could not stand for that. Instead, it was easier for them to socialize the losses on the backs of the US taxpayers.

Bank of America's recent swoon is only a small chapter in the ongoing saga that will bring down the oligarchical nature of our corrupt political and financial system. 99%ers are celebrating.

A couple of items of note:

Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate that the establishment loves to hate, has taken the lead in Iowa accordind to the most recent polling by Public Policy Polling (PPP), one of a handful of organizations tracking the rise and fall of candidates in the upcoming (January 3) caucuses.

The results have Paul at 23%, leading Mitt Romney (20%) and a rapidly declining Newt Gingrich (14%), even though Romney recently picked up the endorsement of the the Des Moines Register, Iowa's leading newspaper. Paul is also reported to have taken in more than $4 million over the past weekend, and now is in second place, behind Romney, in New Hampshire.

Also, a searing report on where we're headed in 2012, called the Thunder Road Report, leading with the cryptic warning, "Dear Portfolio Manager, you are leaving the capitalist sector and heading into a full-spectrum crisis."

The entire report is available at the end of this post.

Anybody seen Santa?

Dow 11,766.26, -100.13 (0.84%)
NASDAQ 2,523.14, -32.19 (1.26%)
S&P 500 1,205.35, -14.31 (1.17%)
NYSE Composite 7,142.45, -95.21 (1.32%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,591,603,125
NYSE Volume 3,659,820,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1230-4469
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 110-290 (blowing out)
WTI crude oil: 93.88, +0.35
Gold: 1,596.70, -1.20
Silver: 28.87, -0.80

TRoad25

Fitch Report on US Bank Exposure to Europe Crushes Stocks

Stocks were just trundling along on low volume Wednesday, until about 2:30 pm ET, when things took a turn for the worse. Nothing overly dramatic, but stocks began to slide from break-even into the red and accelerated at 3:30 - just 1/2 hour from the closing bell, when Fitch Ratings put out a report that focused attention on US bank exposure to Europe, saying that, though hedged, the top five US banks - Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Goldman Sach and Morgan Stanley (supposedly, those are the big five) - could suffer severely if the European debt crisis spirals out of control.

While there was nothing really new in the report, traders took it quite seriously, sending the Dow - already down about 75 points when the report surfaced - another 100 points lower into the close.

Gross exposures to large European countries was at the heart of the report, with US banks exposed to more than $400 billion of loans to France, the UK and banks in those countries. Despite steadfastly denying any outsized exposure to Europe, a half trillion dollars, as expressed by the Fitch report, isn't just chicken feed.

As to the sudden shift prior to the report going public, there was probably some degree of front-running by those with advance knowledge, generally the very same banks named in the report.

Earlier in the day, CPI was reported to be down 0.1% in October, industrial production improved by 0.7% and capacity utilization stood at 77.8%, up 0.5% from September.

By the end of the session, all sectors were lower, led by financials, especially Bank of America (BAC), which closed down 23 cents, to 5.90, its lowest close since October 7. Citigroup (C) was off 1.16, to 26.86, and Goldman Sachs (GS) fell 4.15, to 95.60.

Trade in crude oil was higher, though unusually focused on a plan to change the direction of crude oil flows on the Seaway pipeline, to enable it to transport oil from Cushing, Oklahoma to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The dense argument, which would, if oil were traded in a truly free and not-manipulated market, cause oil prices to fall, produced the opposite effect, with WTI crude rocketing above the $100 mark, as the gap between WTI and Brent crude continued to contract.

What seems to be in play is an overt effort to square the prices of the two grades worldwide. US oil has been creap for decades, but the price of crude in the US seems destined to rival that of Europe even though supplies in Canada, which has direct access to US markets, are high and could easily outstrip oil imports from the Middle East and elsewhere.

After President Obama shut down the proposed Keystone pipeline - which would have taken oil from the Alberta oil sands directly to Gulf Coast refineries - on regulatory and environmental grounds until at least after his supposed re-election, the only conclusion to be drawn is that it's not only the banks, the AMA and big pharma that have their tentacles around US politicians, but big oil as well, though that is hardly a revelation.

The news flow, from Europe and the US, continues to suggest that politicians and financial concerns know an economic downturn is just ahead, the only question being whether it's from natural economic forces or planned by the elitist elements in government, business and finance. Skeptics will call that "conspiracy theory" but since the politicians in the US (and probably in Europe) haven't done a thing to benefit the general population in two decades, why would they change their stripes now?

Dow 11,905.59 190.57 (1.58%)
NASDAQ 2,639.61 46.59 (1.73%)
S&P 500 1,236.91 20.90 (1.66%)
NYSE Compos 7,392.03 117.02 (1.56%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,940,961,000.00
NYSE Volume 4,034,991,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1427-4226
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 74-105
WTI crude oil: 102.59, 3.22
Gold: 1,774.30, -7.90
Silver: 33.82, -0.63

Wall Street Starts Week on Down Note, Sluggish Volume

There was no follow-up to last week's furious upside rallies on Monday, as traders sought catalysts for profit but found few. Oddly, given that the news over the weekend indicated something of a simmering in the ongoing European debt crisis, volume was at mid-summer levels or lower, marking one of the lowest trading volume days of the year.

Just as everything was up on Friday, just about all asset classes showed losses on Monday, including stocks of all flavors, led lower by shares of financial companies, including the world's favorites, Goldman Sachs (GS -2.37, 99.29), Citigroup (C -0.95, 28.38) and Bank of America (BAC -0.16, 6.05), which just can't seem to get out of the six-dollar range, to the chagrin of Warren Buffett and countless speculators who believe that bank stocks are a bargain (like uber-bank-bull, Dick Bove).

All sectors finished in the red, with consumer cyclicals showing the smallest loss (-0.31%).

Still, the most pronounced factor of the session was the sheer lack of velocity, as though some of the big brokerages had turned off the HFT computers and handed the trading back to humans. The trading marked the third-lowest volume of the year.

It would be nice if that actually happened, but one can hope and dream. Meanwhile, there just doesn't seem to be much interest in buying or selling much of anything, at least for today.

Dow 12,079.44, -74.24 (0.61%)
NASDAQ 2,657.22, -21.53 (0.80%)
S&P 500 1,251.88, -11.97 (0.95%)
NYSE Composite 7,496.71, -79.47 (1.05%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,401,417,000
NYSE Volume 3,075,054,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1384-4266
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 81-82
WTI crude oil: 98.14, -0.85
Gold: 1,778.40, -9.70
Silver: 34.02, -0.66

Citi, Bank of America in Massive Fail Mode; Euro Leaders Diddle Over EFSF

The European mess got so badly confused it crashed this writer's browser and about half the post was washed into the ether. In any case, conflicting reports from the Eurozone make this weekend's EFSF-fest look something like this: Finance ministers of the various Euro nations will meet on Friday; German Chencellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will meet on Saturday; the rest is somewhat hazy due to conflicting reports, but the whole she-band of the 2 trillion Euro bailout fund (which may include 5:1 leverage) should be wrapped up and delivered to the panting, waiting world on Sunday, or Wednesday, maybe.

That is the kind of music the Europeans are playing above the din of Wall Street's stressed markets, making them zig-zag with even more amplitude than under the normal rigging of the HFT computers. Stocks were down, then up, then sideways, then finally finished mostly flat.

What is on one hand frustrating and on the other wildly amusing is that all the nations of Europe don't have 2 trillion Euros to rub together, much less 10 trillion once the fund goes the leverage route. Get ready for massive currency devaluation and market disruptions as the Eurozone embarks on an experiment in quantitative easing (money printing) that makes Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve look like amateurs.

While all the noise and fury from Europe was making trading something resembling a kindergarten face-painting class, a couple of items concerning a couple of US banks the media forgot to mention appeared on the web.

Apparently aiming for the honor of headline of the month, the New York Post reports, Citi fined $285M for selling dog$#!t paper.

It appears that the SEC stopped watching porn for a few minutes to slap a fine on Citigroup for selling mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to their clients they knew were dog$#!t and, a la Goldman Sachs, bet against them in the derivatives market. The fine amounts to a small fraction of the beating investors continue to take and a spec of dust compared to what Citi and the other TBTF banks did to the US and global financial and housing markets.

Good for those few non-porn-addicted officials at the SEC for finally waking up, albeit three years late, and doing somewhat of the right thing, though, as usual, Citi admits no wrongdoing and no executives have been fined, jailed or slaughtered for public delight... yet. That's why we have the Occupy Wall Street movement. They may not have defined demands, but, in general they hate the mega-banks and the people who run them.

Then there's Bank of America, which has been shuckin' and jivin' so much they seem to be shadowboxing with themselves in a mirror inside a kaleidoscope. Their recent maladies are summed up in an article by the erudite by barely comprehensible Chris Whalen of Risk Analytics, in an article entitled, Is Bank of America preparing for a Chapter 11? published by Reuters UK, because apparently the average reader in America probably won't understand a word of it, though we are pleased to give everyone a try.

Basically, BofA is getting rough press over their recent decision to charge debit card users a fee for the service and now, they're making it harder to avoid the $5/month fee.

Additionally, the $8.5 billion settlement the bank had worked out with various MBS trusts, including Pimco and the NY Fed, has unraveled and is being sent to a federal court. Boo-hoo.

And, completing the trifecta, Bank of America has moved Merrill Lynch derivatives into it's banking unit, putting over $1 trillion of deposits at imminent risk.

Nice.

Dow 11,541.78, +37.16 (0.32%)
NASDAQ 2,598.62, -5.42 (0.21%)
S&P 500 1,215.39, +5.51 (0.46%)
NYSE Composite 7,273.90, +33.64 (0.46%)
NASDAQ Volume 2,095,450,875
NYSE Volume 4,870,291,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3404-2984
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 26-71 (finally, something that makes sense)
WTI crude oil: 85.30, -0.81
Gold: 1,612.90, -34.10
Silver: 30.28, -1.00

Market Pops on Bogus ESFS Euro Report; Apple Misses, Tanks

You've got to love this market.

Any little statement or rumor that European Union leaders might throw significant money at their pan-continental debt crisis sends stocks soaring into the stratosphere, and today was one for the record books.

An unusually quiet day, stocks had regained a foothold after Monday's sudden reversal. But, shortly after 3:00 pm EDT, the UK's Guardian reported that France and Germany had agreed to boost the Euro bailout fund - the ESFS - to EURO 2 Trillion, a significant rise, and one that might just help kick the debt can down the road a few months, or even years.

Shortly after the story broke, however, Dow Jones reported that the 2 Trillion Euro figure was actually "still under debate," so, who really knows? At least the market machines and mechanics got what they wanted, a nice 100-point spike in the Dow in about ten minutes time and an S&P close over 1224. Mission accomplished. Now, move along, folks, nothing to see here.

In a day (week, month, year) full of bogus reports, before the open, Bank of America (BAC) reported 3Q earnings of 57 cents per share, but, because of the new math, which includes such exotic flavors as fair value adjustments on structured liabilities and trading Debit Valuation Adjustments (DVA), according to our friends at Zero Hedge, who usually have the best and most-believable dirt, BofA actually had earnings of 0.00, otherwise known as ZERO, Zilch, Nada, Nothing.

Of course, when CNBC and the rest of the supine financial media report, bare-faced, that the nation's largest bank by deposits more than doubled the analyst estimates (0.21) for the quarter, it was off to the races, with somebody shocking BAC shares up 10% by day's end, a stunning 0.61 gain, to the imposing figure of 6.62. While it's technically a 10% gain, it's still rather silly, considering the accounting nonsense being roundly applauded by the criminal bankster elite, and hardly any comfort to those who bought BAC when it was 7, or 8 or even 12. Make no mistake, we've entered the Twilight Zone of financial accounting and there's no turning back.

Along those lines, the Giant Squid otherwise known as Goldman Sachs (GS), also reported before the bell, but it's results were almost believable, showing a loss of 84 cents per share, with losses spread across the company's proprietary trading division, to the tune of $2.5 billion. Ouch. The market's response to the trending data of a company heading decidedly south: a gain of 5.25 (5%) to 102.25 and the financials led all other sectors in the faux rally du jour.

Also before the bell, PPI was reported to be up 0.8% in September on expectations of a rise of only 0.2%, which just happened to be how much the core PPI was up for the month. Somebody obviously missed the memo from the Fed that inflation was transitory, or something along those lines. Inflation in the US is running at an annual rate well over 6%, something the mainstream media hopes you don't notice.

One company which may be adversely affected by the loss of its CEO - the truly brilliant Steve Jobs - is Apple, which announced today after the bell that the company had an outstanding quarter as usual, but, uh, oh, they missed the estimates of 7.39 per share by a bit, reporting earnings for the quarter of 7.05 per share and also came up about a billion dollars short on the revenue end.

As of this writing, Apple shares were trading at 394.13, -28.11 (-6.66%). Not a very pretty picture there.

So, to recap, Goldman Sachs reports a massive loss, Bank of America releases what amounts to a fraudulent earnings report, inflation is about ready for lift-off into hyper-inflation and the market gets a jolly from a questionable report on the size of the European bailout fund. All good fun, no?

With Apple's miss in the after-hours and another couple of big banks - Morgan Stanley (MS) and PNC Financial Services (PNC) - due to report tomorrow, somebody might want to take a closer look at the number of companies that have missed or merely met estimates this earnings season, and maybe add in those who just plain fudged the numbers. But, not to worry, Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) and Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD) are also reporting tomorrow and should provide sufficient caloric excess to fuel another rally in the markets.

Wow! You cannot make this stuff up.

Dow 11,577.05, +180.05 (1.58%)
NASDAQ 2,657.43, +42.51 (1.63%)
S&P 500 1,225.38, +24.52 (2.04%)
NYSE Composite 7,341.73, +153.07 (2.13%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,988,896,750
NYSE Volume 5,669,232,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 5211
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 52-65 (Really? No kidding. extremely bearish)
WTI crude oil: 88.34, +1.96
Gold: 1,652.80, -23.80
Silver: 31.83, +0.01

G20, Merkel, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, NY ManuafacturingSink Stocks

Well, those last two weeks were certainly fun if you were long equities, so get ready for two weeks of pain, as that seems to be the general pattern of our over-hyped, over-controlled and manipulated crony capitalism markets.

Stocks have run up and down in a range on the S&P 500 from a low of 1099 to a high of 1224 since August 4th, after stocks took a tumble from their late-July highs. Volatility has been unusually high during the period, as uncertainty over US debt, European solvency and the continued threat of global recession weight on investors and speculators.

Starting on Saturday with the ludicrous demands of the G20 central bankers and finance ministers that Europe fix its debt problems by October 23, news flow has once again turned decidedly negative. Upon hearing the dictates from the G20 that leaders attending the European Union summit, "decisively address the current challenges through a comprehensive plan," Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, quickly tamped down expectations through spokesman Steffan Seibert, stating that "the dreams that are emerging again, that on Monday everything will be resolved and everything will be over will again not be fulfilled."

Those were the news items facing stocks in New York as the opening bell approached, but, prior to the regular casino-esque ring-a-ling at 9:30 am EDT, a couple of banks released third quarter earnings that sent futures lower. First up was Citigroup (C), which announced earnings of $1.23 per share on analyst expectations of 88 cents. At first glance, the quarter seemed positive, but accounting gimmicks provided most of the (mostly) phantom revenue.

The results included a pretax gain of $1.9 billion, or 39 cents per share after taxes, due to the bank's widening credit spreads during the quarter. When a bank's debt weakens relative to U.S. Treasuries, it can record an accounting gain because it could theoretically profit from buying back its own debt. Along with the idea that the bank was making money on its own worsening credit risk, Citi also lowered loan-loss reserves, further fluffing the quarterly profit picture.

Initially, investors bought into the grand scheme, sending the stock higher in early trading, but by the end of the day, the ruse had been found out and Citigroup stock sold off by 0.47, ending the session close to its lows, at 27.93.

Wells Fargo (WFC) came out with its earnings right after Citigroup, and though the numbers were more straightforward, the overall picture was dim. The bank said it earned 72 cents per share in the quarter, a penny below consensus estimates. Even though it was an improvement of 21%, revenue was down and the company lowered loan-loss reserved by $800 million, boosting the numbers. Traders sold off the company stock to the tune of a nearly 8.5% loss, ending the day down 2.25, at 24.42.

As if the bad reports from two of the nation's largest banks wasn't enough, New York state's empire manufacturing index continued to scrape along the bottom, posting -8.48 for October after a reading of -8.82 in September. Readings on national capacity utilization and industrial production returned basically flat.

Stocks sold off right at the open and continued a slow, painful decline throughout the remainder of the session. If the whole idea of the rally from the past two weeks was to sell off into options expiration on Friday, the downbeat news arrived right on time.

Even IBM, which reported after the close, could not garner any support. Big Blue was off almost 4% in after-hours trading, following their reported narrow beats on earnings and revenue.

Two more big banks report tomorrow and their 3rd quarters ought to be real doozies. Goldman sachs is expected to post a loss for the quarter, while Bank of America can float out whatever numbers it chooses. Nobody will believe any of them.

Dow 11,397.00 247.49 (2.13%)
NASDAQ 2,614.92 52.93 (1.98%)
S&P 500 1,200.86 23.72 (1.94%)
NYSE Compos 7,188.66 161.80 (2.20%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,711,161,000.00
NYSE Volume 4,203,815,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1322-5177
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 38-47
WTI crude oil: 86.32, -0.48
Gold: 1,676.60, -6.40
Silver: 31.82, -0.35

Another Low Volume Upswing

Well, somebody's making money, but there aren't very many people trading. Volume today was among the lowest of the year, and it's supposed to be busy.

Call it what you like, but a 166-point move on the Dow on near-record-low volume, to most experts, is absolutely meaningless and not likely to retain value for long. This market is so full of hope, desperation and inside dealings one could easily assume the only traders left will soon be gnashing at each other's flesh over the few bones left to be picked over.

Of course, this continuing ramp-up on the major averages come just days before the major banks release third quarter earnings next week, among them Citi, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, PNC and Morgan Stanley. JP Morgan Chase already released their third quarter results and they were nothing if not laughable, so full of accounting gimmickry and false statements it's amazing anybody would hold even one share of this global disaster.

Sure, let's buy Apple at over $400 per share, or Google at $600. Most of us would rather stuff it in a mattress, which is the thought around the current war being waged on SAVERS, by SPECULATORS. There is no opportunity to actually earn interest in a savings plan, whether it be in treasuries, money markets, CDs or any other, so-called "safe" strategic asset. And the pundits, like the Reverend Jim Cramer, who say to buy high-yielding industrials, are whistling past the grave, because a stock like Coca-Cola (KO) sporting a 2.8% dividend and trading currently in the mid-to-high 60s, only has to lose two to three points in order to wipe out all of that dividend income. When the eventual market crash comes, the dividend checks cashed over the years will look truly pathetic to the lost value in the stock itself, and thus, your capital has been wasted, your savings destroyed.

Since the global banking cartel, in association with the spendthrift governments of the world, now control just about all major markets, including commodities such as oil, gold and silver, there is literally nowhere to invest safely except in unknown penny stocks or completely local. That's right, you're probably better off loaning the kid down the street $5000 to get his computer repair business off the ground than sinking your hard-earned-and-eventually-taxed-out-of-existence money into any Wall Street-related stock or scheme, and today's absurdly low volume on top of many previous ridiculously low volume days over the past year proves that people have not only lost money with Wall Street, but are rapidly losing their patience - see the Occupy Wall Street movement - and their interest in the future of big business in America.

As has been said before on this blog, the current economic climate is ripe for collapse, and the only investments should be in tools of trades and basic survival equipment. There's probably a good opportunity in firewood upcoming this winter, as the control fraud in heating oil and natural gas will bury even more families this winter under unbearable expense.

It is distressing, to say the least, to watch the European leaders lie about having a plan, making a plan, preparing a plan to save the continent when in reality all they can do is what the Federal Reserve is so expert at: printing more money and devaluing the currency.

And one final word, on this Herman Cain and his idiotic 9-9-9 plan which includes a 9% income tax, a 9% corporate tax and a 9% national sales tax. To put it into the words of somebody I know and love well, "this plan is another way for the rich to get richer and the poor poorer. Most of the people in the higher tax brackets love it because they're paying something North of 35% presently in income tax, and many of them have businesses paying a 35% corporate income tax. On the other end, the people who will be most damaged by this stupid gimmick of a plan will be the poor and middle class, who already pay no tax because they don't make enough money and would have to pay an additional 9% sales tax on top of the state sales tax they're already having ripped from their hands by incompetent state governments.

What is truly amazing about Herman Cain is that he is a front-runner for the Republicans on the basis of this plan. A Herman Cain presidency would plunge 2/3rds of the nation into abject poverty, and maybe that's part of the plan, to turn America into another stinking third world backwater. They're doing a pretty good job on it so far. Mr. Cain is about as fit to be president as Charlie Sheen. Actually, Charlie might not do such a bad job. At least his press conferences would be #winning events.

What a country, full of liars and thieves at the very pinnacle of business and politics.

Dow 11,644.49, +166.36 (1.45%)
NASDAQ 2,667.85, +47.61 (1.82%)
S&P 500 1,224.58, +20.92 (1.74%)
NYSE Composite 7,350.46, +121.38 (1.68%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,687,163,000
NYSE Volume 4,057,578,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 5103-1362
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 52-32
WTI crude oil: 86.80, +2.57 (Why?)
Gold: 1,683.00, +14.50
Silver: 32.17, +0.51

Third Quarter a Stinker for Stocks; NASDAQ, SP Down 14%

The Markets

The third quarter officially ended today on September 30, and, unlike the usual quarter-ending, window-dressing ramp job, stocks suffered through their worst day of the week, in a month and quarter that was one of the worst of recent memory - and there have been some bad ones, recently.

The Dow Jones Industrials ended the quarter off more than 12%. The S&P and NASDAQ were rocked lower by 14%.

In simple terms, anybody in an index fund with $100,000 at the end of June, now has somewhere between $86,000 and $88,000. That may not sound like much, but $12-14,000 is roughly equivalent to the wages for a minimum-wage worker for a year. That's not a good sign for the bottom income earners in American society, because it means that the "wealth creators" so often cited by Republican office-seekers, have one minimum wage job less than they can create, should they now choose to part with some of that hard-earned (and easily lost) cash.

On the day, stocks started lower, stabilized, but fell off a veritable cliff into the close. There was no window dressing, no PPT push, no ETF re-balancing or anything to keep stocks afloat into the close. Nobody seemed willing to take significant positions in stocks, even though the 4th quarter is historically the best for stocks. The levels of gloom and doom rival those of the disastrous 4th quarter of 2008, when the global financial crisis was first realized and stocks gyrated lower and lower and lower.

Not only were stocks affected negatively during the month and quarter, but most commodities also fell by extraordinary percentages, especially gold and silver, which were whacked roughly 16 and 25% respectively. There was no place to hide for even the most conservative investors. Yields on Treasuries fell like rocks off a precipice. Bond yields for the 2-year, 5-year and 10-year note fell 40-45% in the quarter. The benchmark 10-year note closed out the quarter at a yield of 1.90%. The 30-year bond was the best performer of an ugly bunch, with yields falling only 35% since the end of June.

Crude oil was down 17% in the quarter, though gas prices at the pump have barely matched the decline. With gas prices nearly $4.00 a gallon at the beginning of summer, the average price - if 17% is the expected decline - should be around $3.35, though the AAA Fuel Gauge Report has the national average at $3.44. For perspective on how high real gasoline prices are, the price at the same time last year was a celebratory $2.69.

In company news, Eastman Kodak (EK), once a proud member of the Dow 30, fell 54% on the day amid reports that the company had hired the law firm Jones Day to discuss reorganization plans or a bankruptcy filing. Shares of Eastman Kodak dropped 91 cents to close at 0.78, an historic low.

Bank of America (BAC) plans to begin charging debit card users a $5 monthly fee in January, 2012, due to changes in the amounts banks can charge merchants per debit card use. BAC finished the day 23 cents lower, at 6.12.

Big corporate bankruptcies are dead ahead, likely to commence in the fourth quarter and accelerate through the first three quarters of 2012. Third quarter earnings reports kick off on October 11, when Alcoa (AA) reports after the bell.

Thank goodness for the baseball playoffs and football. Yeesh!

Dow 10,913.38 240.60 (2.16%)
NASDAQ 2,415.40 65.36 (2.63%)
S&P 500 1,131.42 28.98 (2.50%)
NYSE Compos 6,791.65 183.26 (2.63%)
NASDAQ Volume 2,081,539,875.00
NYSE Volume 5,323,945,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1442-5118
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 31-515 (look out below!)
WTI crude oil: 78.65, -3.47
Gold: 1623.80, +7.90
Silver: 29.94, -0.73