After the release of the non-farm payroll data for December, futures rose on the news that the nation created 156,000 net new jobs in the month, just shy of consensus estimates for 170,000. What may have been the cause for optimism was the 0.4% increase in wages carried in the report. The unemployment rate rose a notch to 4.7%, but that was at 8:30 am ET, an hour before the market open.
The bigger event began hours later as the Dow Jones Industrial Average - with the other major indices in tow - powered higher, eventually getting to within 0.37 points of the mystical, magic mark of Dow 20,000. The stall occurred at 19,999,63, the high for the day, right around noon.
For roughly the next four hours, the Dow tantalized and amused traders and spectators alike, hovering just below 20,000, reaching to within single points on various occasions.
But it never made it, as though somebody had placed a lid on the market right at the 20,000 mark. The index struggled and failed, over and over again throughout the afternoon, to no avail. Finally, with less than ten minutes remianing in the trading day, all the stops apparently run, the ghost was given up and the Dow closed not only short of 20,000 but also shy of a new record, at 19,963.80, a few ticks short of the all-time high close made on December 20 of last year, 19,974.62.
Explanations abound as to why the Dow cannot break through this hysterical, purely-psychological number, the best of them probably involving program trading, as computer algos have been set to sell as the number is approached. If that is the case, there's more than a few sharpies on Wall Street thinking that stocks are severely overvalued, or that even if Dow 20,000 is pierced, it will not hold.
Stocks are severely overvalued, boosted over the past eight years by cheap funding courtesy of the Federal Reserve, whose pockets are being emptied, replaced by promises to pay in the form of treasury and mortgage bonds, many of them losing value.
This was a close call for sure, but the 20,000 mark still stands triumphant over a market that continues to show weakness and an unwillingness to carry through to even higher figures.
With this in mind, the question to be answered over the weekend is, will it do it on Monday? Tuesday? Ever?
From all appearances, with markets stretched to the breaking point, it's not a very good bet, no matter how close it gets.
Thus, the first trading week of the new year ends in tears, though it was a profitable one for stocks with the notable exception of the NYSE Composite, which closed down for the day. Gains were made on all major indices, but perhaps people should be paying more attention to interest rates, which, after an initial surge in yield following last month's 25 basis point hike in the federal funds rate, have fallen hard. The 10-year note yielded 2.418%, but closed Thursday at 2.368%, the lowest yield in a month. While the apparent reversal from the Fed's induced yield above 2.50% is not set in concrete, it is surely something which bears close inspection. Spreads have narrowed since the rate hike, an ominous sign of rough times ahead. If stocks falter, the stampede into bonds will be overwhelming, but possibly the move has already begun in anticipation of a stock market correction or reversal into a bear market.
However, elite traders can pat themselves on the back as they head home for the weekend. So far, January 2017 is looking good for equities, despite the obvious failure at Dow 20,000.
At the Close 1.6.16:
Dow: 19,963.80, +64.51 (0.32%)
NASDAQ: 5,521.06, +33.12 (0.60%)
S&P 500: 2,276.98, +7.98 (0.35%)
NYSE Composite: 11,237.63, -10.06 (-0.09%)
For the Week:
Dow: +201.20 (1.02%)
NASDAQ: +137.94 (2.56%)
S&P 500: +38.15 (1.70%)
NYSE Composite: +180.73 (1.63%)
Showing posts with label DJIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DJIA. Show all posts
Friday, January 6, 2017
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
How Now, Dow? New All-Time Highs on DJIA, SPX
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) added 120.74 points, or 0.7%, to close at 18,347.67, making a fresh closing all-time high, surpassing the previous closing high when it finished at 18,312.39 on May 19, 2015. The blue-chip gauge briefly hit an intra-day top at 18,371.95.
Additionally, the S&P tacked on nearly 15 points, setting another record closing high.
Continued strength in the markets may be a sow's ear, however, since the Fed might choose to tap on the brakes with a rate hike if such outlandish behavior continues. On the other hand, since the Fed is a major buyer of equities these days, the FOMC may just back away from the rate hike mania and allow markets to simply go where they will with super low interest rates backstopped by a shaky core economy and a presidential election.
There has been no sense in fighting the Fed, since they have unlimited power to print as much as they like, though the natural questions have to be "where will it end, when does it end, how does it end?"
Nobody has the answers, and nearly the same amount is asking. There's too much money sloshing around for anybody to take a step back and take a critical view of fundamental valuations, which are becoming expensive.
Signals have been shown by the markets, but, as has happened throughout history, the signals are being ignored as long as the champagne and money are flowing.
S&P 500: 2,152.14, +14.98 (0.70%)
Dow: 18,347.67, +120.74 (0.66%)
NASDAQ: 5,022.82, +34.18 (0.69%)
Additionally, the S&P tacked on nearly 15 points, setting another record closing high.
Continued strength in the markets may be a sow's ear, however, since the Fed might choose to tap on the brakes with a rate hike if such outlandish behavior continues. On the other hand, since the Fed is a major buyer of equities these days, the FOMC may just back away from the rate hike mania and allow markets to simply go where they will with super low interest rates backstopped by a shaky core economy and a presidential election.
There has been no sense in fighting the Fed, since they have unlimited power to print as much as they like, though the natural questions have to be "where will it end, when does it end, how does it end?"
Nobody has the answers, and nearly the same amount is asking. There's too much money sloshing around for anybody to take a step back and take a critical view of fundamental valuations, which are becoming expensive.
Signals have been shown by the markets, but, as has happened throughout history, the signals are being ignored as long as the champagne and money are flowing.
S&P 500: 2,152.14, +14.98 (0.70%)
Dow: 18,347.67, +120.74 (0.66%)
NASDAQ: 5,022.82, +34.18 (0.69%)
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Stocks, Oil Lower As Dollar Rebound Pushes Bond Price; Silver Suffers
The past few weeks haven't been very kind to the almighty greenback, but today was a respite from some concerted selling, sending stocks and oil lower.
While that scenario makes perfect sense for stocks and commodities in general, it sure doesn't help when the master manipulators manage to gang up on the one asset underpinning everything... not gold, silver.
Massive silver price suppression over the past 15 years has pushed the coin of common men to unheard of ratios in comparison to gold, and today was textbook slamming against the metal of the working man. While the absurdity of the 70:1 and higher silver to gold ratio has been discussed here in the past - and elsewhere, by more astute students of real money, it bears repeating, and repeating, until the price suppression stops completely.
That may be more of a pipe dream than winning the lottery, yet it is the one eventuality that must come to pass if the rule of central bankers and their idiotic QE and NIRP policies are ever to end and the financial universe is to regain some semblance of real markets and real prices, as opposed to the obviously fraudulent ones foisted upon the world by central bankers, especially those entertained by the US Federal Reserve.
With unlimited power to create money out of thin air, there is no market the master bankers cannot control, so it is easy to assume that they can absolutely pollute and disintegrate all price discovery mechanisms when it comes to silver, one of the smallest markets (in dollar terms, by their wicked design) of all.
But, to the guy or gal who is looking to keep wealth out of the corrupted central banking system and regain some sanity in his or her financial affairs, silver is a bottom holding, a base unit of measure, and insurance against what appears to be an advancing monetary apocalypse.
A one ounce bar of silver can still be had for under $20 US, and that little sliver of metallic hope may be all that's left between survival and tortuous, tyrannical totalitarianism.
As for stocks, they are but pieces of paper promises, and highly overrated as investment instruments. Compaies come and go, nations rise and fall, but silver will remain
S&P 500: 2,063.37, -18.06 (0.87%)
Dow: 17,750.91, -140.25 (0.78%)
NASDAQ: 4,763.22, -54.37 (1.13%)
Crude Oil 43.90 -1.97% Gold 1,288.20 -0.59% EUR/USD 1.1497 -0.26% 10-Yr Bond 1.80 -3.49% Corn 379.00 -3.25% Copper 2.22 -2.16% Silver 17.46 -1.26% Natural Gas 2.08 +2.01% Russell 2000 1,121.76 -1.68% VIX 15.60 +6.27% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4536 -0.88% USD/JPY 107.1130 +0.61%
While that scenario makes perfect sense for stocks and commodities in general, it sure doesn't help when the master manipulators manage to gang up on the one asset underpinning everything... not gold, silver.
Massive silver price suppression over the past 15 years has pushed the coin of common men to unheard of ratios in comparison to gold, and today was textbook slamming against the metal of the working man. While the absurdity of the 70:1 and higher silver to gold ratio has been discussed here in the past - and elsewhere, by more astute students of real money, it bears repeating, and repeating, until the price suppression stops completely.
That may be more of a pipe dream than winning the lottery, yet it is the one eventuality that must come to pass if the rule of central bankers and their idiotic QE and NIRP policies are ever to end and the financial universe is to regain some semblance of real markets and real prices, as opposed to the obviously fraudulent ones foisted upon the world by central bankers, especially those entertained by the US Federal Reserve.
With unlimited power to create money out of thin air, there is no market the master bankers cannot control, so it is easy to assume that they can absolutely pollute and disintegrate all price discovery mechanisms when it comes to silver, one of the smallest markets (in dollar terms, by their wicked design) of all.
But, to the guy or gal who is looking to keep wealth out of the corrupted central banking system and regain some sanity in his or her financial affairs, silver is a bottom holding, a base unit of measure, and insurance against what appears to be an advancing monetary apocalypse.
A one ounce bar of silver can still be had for under $20 US, and that little sliver of metallic hope may be all that's left between survival and tortuous, tyrannical totalitarianism.
As for stocks, they are but pieces of paper promises, and highly overrated as investment instruments. Compaies come and go, nations rise and fall, but silver will remain
S&P 500: 2,063.37, -18.06 (0.87%)
Dow: 17,750.91, -140.25 (0.78%)
NASDAQ: 4,763.22, -54.37 (1.13%)
Crude Oil 43.90 -1.97% Gold 1,288.20 -0.59% EUR/USD 1.1497 -0.26% 10-Yr Bond 1.80 -3.49% Corn 379.00 -3.25% Copper 2.22 -2.16% Silver 17.46 -1.26% Natural Gas 2.08 +2.01% Russell 2000 1,121.76 -1.68% VIX 15.60 +6.27% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4536 -0.88% USD/JPY 107.1130 +0.61%
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Coordinated Central Bank Easing Leads to Higher Stock Prices
First came the BOJ.
Then the ECB.
And, just this past Wednesday, the Fed chimed into the global monetary easing chorus with no increase in the federal funds rate, and a solid statement that the FOMC would likely only increase rates twice in 2016, for a paltry 1/2 percent increase.
Such a move would put the rate at 0.75 to one percent by December of this year, or, put another way, just a touch lower than the Greenspan put of the early 2000s.
Those unfamiliar with recent history would not understand how Greenspan's easy rate policy led to various mal-investments, not the least of which were in the housing market, which led to a boom and then a bust and the 2008 financial crisis.
So, what the central bankers are telling us in a unified voice, is that they'll gladly take the risk of another massive financial implosion in order to keep the global fiat currency regime intact.
So far, they're doing quite well. There've been no mass protests, riots, or other noticeable social uprisings in the dominant economies of the developed nations, and, while detractors will proclaim that this regime of low (and even negative) interest rates cannot continue without devastating consequences, the world keeps spinning, the rich get richer and the rest of us carry on in quiet, medieval fashion, mumbling vaguely about unfairness and impropriety.
Elsewhere, stock owners are popping the champagne corks and drinking lustily from the font of the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of Japan, especially in the USA, which just completed one of the quickest and most violent market reversals in recorded history, bringing the Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 back to breakeven for the year.
In just over a month's time, the Dow has rallied more than 2,000 points off the mid-February lows. The S&P took off from 1810.10 to close at 2049.58 on Friday, an impressive, 13.23% move. Who said timing wasn't everything?
Buy and hold will be the order of the day, it seems, as long as the central bankers retain complete control over every market, everywhere. When that changes, nobody knows, though many still try. The piper, it appears, will be paid at a later date, likely of the central banks' choosing.
For an overview of the central bank monetary madness, and possible preview of what's ahead, the Telegraph offers keen insight with:
Central banks are already doing the unthinkable -- you just don't know it.
For the week:
DOW: +388.99 (2.26%)
S&P 500: +27.39 (1.35%)
NASDAQ: +47.18 (0.99%)
Friday's Fun Fed Figures:
S&P 500: 2,049.58, +8.99 (0.44%)
Dow: 17,602.30, +120.81 (0.69%)
NASDAQ: 4,795.65, +20.66 (0.43%)
Crude Oil 41.13 -1.27% Gold 1,256.00 -0.71% EUR/USD 1.1268 -0.02% 10-Yr Bond 1.8710 -1.68% Corn 366.50 -0.54% Copper 2.29 -0.28% Silver 15.82 -1.30% Natural Gas 1.89 -2.22% Russell 2000 1,101.67 +0.95% VIX 14.02 -2.91% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4471 -0.05% USD/JPY 111.5525 0.00%
Then the ECB.
And, just this past Wednesday, the Fed chimed into the global monetary easing chorus with no increase in the federal funds rate, and a solid statement that the FOMC would likely only increase rates twice in 2016, for a paltry 1/2 percent increase.
Such a move would put the rate at 0.75 to one percent by December of this year, or, put another way, just a touch lower than the Greenspan put of the early 2000s.
Those unfamiliar with recent history would not understand how Greenspan's easy rate policy led to various mal-investments, not the least of which were in the housing market, which led to a boom and then a bust and the 2008 financial crisis.
So, what the central bankers are telling us in a unified voice, is that they'll gladly take the risk of another massive financial implosion in order to keep the global fiat currency regime intact.
So far, they're doing quite well. There've been no mass protests, riots, or other noticeable social uprisings in the dominant economies of the developed nations, and, while detractors will proclaim that this regime of low (and even negative) interest rates cannot continue without devastating consequences, the world keeps spinning, the rich get richer and the rest of us carry on in quiet, medieval fashion, mumbling vaguely about unfairness and impropriety.
Elsewhere, stock owners are popping the champagne corks and drinking lustily from the font of the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of Japan, especially in the USA, which just completed one of the quickest and most violent market reversals in recorded history, bringing the Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 back to breakeven for the year.
In just over a month's time, the Dow has rallied more than 2,000 points off the mid-February lows. The S&P took off from 1810.10 to close at 2049.58 on Friday, an impressive, 13.23% move. Who said timing wasn't everything?
Buy and hold will be the order of the day, it seems, as long as the central bankers retain complete control over every market, everywhere. When that changes, nobody knows, though many still try. The piper, it appears, will be paid at a later date, likely of the central banks' choosing.
For an overview of the central bank monetary madness, and possible preview of what's ahead, the Telegraph offers keen insight with:
Central banks are already doing the unthinkable -- you just don't know it.
For the week:
DOW: +388.99 (2.26%)
S&P 500: +27.39 (1.35%)
NASDAQ: +47.18 (0.99%)
Friday's Fun Fed Figures:
S&P 500: 2,049.58, +8.99 (0.44%)
Dow: 17,602.30, +120.81 (0.69%)
NASDAQ: 4,795.65, +20.66 (0.43%)
Crude Oil 41.13 -1.27% Gold 1,256.00 -0.71% EUR/USD 1.1268 -0.02% 10-Yr Bond 1.8710 -1.68% Corn 366.50 -0.54% Copper 2.29 -0.28% Silver 15.82 -1.30% Natural Gas 1.89 -2.22% Russell 2000 1,101.67 +0.95% VIX 14.02 -2.91% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4471 -0.05% USD/JPY 111.5525 0.00%
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Dow Ends Day In Green for 2016
Call it the luck of the Irish, or maybe the magic of Janet Yellen's Fed, but the Dow Jones Industrials ended the day up large, and in the green for 2016. The S&P is just five points away from a positive close for the year.
The NASDAQ needs to get closer to 5000 for breakeven for the year.
That's it. Funny money.
Today's closing quotes:
S&P 500: 2,040.59, +13.37 (0.66%)
Dow: 17,481.49, +155.73 (0.90%)
NASDAQ: 4,774.99, +11.02 (0.23%)
Crude Oil 41.67 +4.17% Gold 1,258.60 +2.34% EUR/USD 1.1318 +0.94% 10-Yr Bond 1.9030 -1.81% Corn 367.75 -0.14% Copper 2.29 +2.44% Silver 15.94 +4.70% Natural Gas 1.93 +3.59% Russell 2000 1,091.25 +1.56% VIX 14.44 -3.67% BATS 1000 20,682.61 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4473 +1.59% USD/JPY 111.3950 -1.23%
The NASDAQ needs to get closer to 5000 for breakeven for the year.
That's it. Funny money.
Today's closing quotes:
S&P 500: 2,040.59, +13.37 (0.66%)
Dow: 17,481.49, +155.73 (0.90%)
NASDAQ: 4,774.99, +11.02 (0.23%)
Crude Oil 41.67 +4.17% Gold 1,258.60 +2.34% EUR/USD 1.1318 +0.94% 10-Yr Bond 1.9030 -1.81% Corn 367.75 -0.14% Copper 2.29 +2.44% Silver 15.94 +4.70% Natural Gas 1.93 +3.59% Russell 2000 1,091.25 +1.56% VIX 14.44 -3.67% BATS 1000 20,682.61 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4473 +1.59% USD/JPY 111.3950 -1.23%
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
