The level of fraud in the scientific community is absolutely out of control. It's even beyond that of the government and media, though the media probably holds the title of most disingenuous as it lies or distorts on practically everything.
On Friday, yet another clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine was halted, this time by the National Institutes of Health.
Citing that the drug has no ill effects on hospitalized patients - in opposition to previously unfounded claims that HCQ was dangerous - a data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) said the drug offered no benefit to hospitalized patients.
It's too bad that the mainstream medical authorities have to be so obviously stupid. HCQ is used as a preventative medicine. It helps the immune system fight off coronavirus, especially when used in a regular regimen with zinc and Azithromycin when asymptomatic or in early stages of infection as this study and many others have clearly shown.
Instead, the NIH, CDC, WHO and other "official" medical bodies refuse to release the proof of the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as what doctors call a prophylactic remedy, insisting that COVID-19 is a deadly disease and that billions must be spent in search of a vaccine, when they know a vaccine will likely never be developed.
These people, who first told the world that wearing a mask was a waste of time, then promoted the use of masks when it suited their purposes, should all be met with swift justice because it is they, not the virus, who are causing countless deaths that could have been saved if proper preventive measures had been taken. They, and the media which continues to promote COVID-19, lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing, absurdities like not allowing fans into sporting events, keeping restaurant customers six feet apart and other ridiculous notions should be tried for operating a criminal conspiracy.
Even this post, because it violates the dictatorial policy of Google, Twitter, or Facebook may be deemed conspiracy theory or in violation of their standards may be labeled with a warning or removed from public view.
The virus is a total scam. The rising cries of a coming "second wave" are nothing more than another attempt to scare people into rash behaviors using slanted statistics while playing on emotions. Places like Georgia, Texas, and Arizona have been cited as possible new hotspots for the virus, but the truth of the matter is that more testing has produced more cases, therefore increasing the daily bogus coronavirus counts. Additionally, all of the various tests have proven to show an abundance of false positives. Hospitalization and death statistics have been overstated since the beginning of the pandemic.
In other words, almost all of the data and scare-mongering from the media is bunk. Complete rubbish. Take off your masks and start living like a human being again. The chances of catching the virus are slim. It has mutated numerous times and most strains circulating are severe or deadly only to people over the age of 60 who have pre-existing health conditions or are obese, suffer from diabetes or heart disease. The general population is in no more danger from COVID-19 than from the common flu.
Get over it. Move on. Tell anybody who disagrees to take their opinions elsewhere. As it stands, there's no baseball this summer and there may not be football this fall. All this pandemic nonsense is about as important and vital as the BLM/Antifa protests. All of it needs to stop and the media is largely to blame for promoting false narratives.
The absurdities were on display at yesterday's Belmont Stakes, where no spectators were allowed into the sprawling Belmont Park facility and everybody on the grounds - except the horses - were required to wear masks. Even jockeys had to wear masks during the races. Please, somebody explain how a rider traveling at 25 to 40 miles per hour is going to catch the virus. It's as bad as the idiots who wear their masks while driving in their cars with the windows rolled up. Stupid. Banal. Idiotic. Is the world really populated by that many morons? If so, maybe the virus should relieve us of 30-40% of the population. More room for everybody. Happy days!
It's just all so annoying and stupid. This post was originally going to be about gold and silver, but the news of yet another HCQ trial being shut down changed those plans.
Go and check your local pharmacy or drug store or vitamin center. They're out of ZINC. Yeah, ZINC. Apparently, some people aren't buying the "we're all gonna die" narrative being shoved down the throats of the unsuspecting public. As the thrust of Money Daily posts over the past few days and weeks have been stressing, the media and government are doing you no good. You need to extricate yourself and your family from the clutches of creeping socialism and outright tyranny.
Let's get away from those who wish only to control everything and move forward to better lives. There is so much the word has to offer, having it ruined by a small minority of psychopathic monsters is a sin and an outrage.
Moving on to the markets and financial world from the week just past, stocks seem to have hit a stall space. The major indices, while all advancing for the week, have not recovered fully from the downdraft of Thursday, June 11. This week's gains were made mainly on Monday and Tuesday. Things slowed down in midweek and by Friday the bloom was off the rose once again.
Not to worry. There's a huge chance that the news will be cocked forward to produce a running start for the major averages and bourses around the world Monday morning. It's just how the Fed and the algorithm-pumping mechanisms operate these days. There's no market. There's no need to study charts or engage in fundamental analysis. Everything is fake, crooked, corrupted.
There is somewhat of a silver lining approaching for people who don't appreciate ever-rising stock prices when companies are showing dwindling profits or actually losing money, however. In a few weeks, publicly-traded companies will be releasing their second quarter financial reports and many of them figure to be absolute dumpster-diving material.
There's been a chart circulating recently showing the number of "zombie" corporations steadily increasing to a point at which nearly one in five US companies are insolvent. A zombie company is loosely defined as a business that has to borrow to survive and doesn’t make enough profit to cover the cost of its debt service. Simply put, these are companies being kept afloat by banks, or the Fed, or both. If it were possible to actually make sense of the books of large commercial banks like Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC) and Citibank (C) it's probable that the banks themselves would be zombies, underwater and headed to bankruptcy if not for the largesse afford them by the Federal Reserve.
The outcome from keeping zombie companies afloat is lower, slower growth in the overall economy. The Fed is actually exacerbating the effects of ultra-low interest rates and keeping insolvent companies alive with the most recent emergency measures that have the Federal Reserve buying debt from ETFs and corporate paper of individual (healthy and failing) companies. The Fed is also buying up municipal debt and may be positioning itself to fund states and cities that have deep budget deficits and buying individual stocks. Yes, the Fed may soon be buying stocks. And who said the markets weren't manipulated?
The bottom line is that we have a central bank producing counterfeit currency to buy assets offered by insolvent companies. Making matters worse, is that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow believe the companies that have received bailouts or funding from the Cares Act should not be disclosed to the public. So, on top of it all, the underhanded workings of the government, the Fed and big business should be kept secret. Nice. Not.
Treasuries basically spent the week flopping around like a landed fish. The yield spread for the entire curve, from 1-month to 30 years ended at 1.31% on Friday, June 12. As of this past Friday (June 19) the spread was 1.34%. Some steepening, but not notable. The 10-year note ended the week one basis point lower than the previous Friday, at 0.70%.
The July futures contract for WTI crude oil closed at a three-month high Friday, at $39.75 a barrel. Like the stock market, oil prices have engaged in a V-shaped rebound, the bottom coming in mid-April when oil hit $11.57 a barrel. While there has been some demand recovery, there's still a worldwide overhang of supply. The price of oil, with almost a direct pathway to gas prices, is another manufactured number. Most US shale producers can't survive below $50 a barrel, much less $40. Thanks to renewables like solar, wind, and hydro-electric, the oil business is dying a slow death. There's abundant resources available, but inroads have been made by so-called "green energy", and efficiencies in newer vehicles are crimping the use of oil and distillates. In an economy on a slowing glide path, there's no good reason for oil prices to rise other than to support the ailing old companies that rely on pumping and consumer use of the greasy stuff.
In the precious metals space, both gold and silver were dumped in the futures market on Monday and then rallied over the course of the week. Silver, despite a generally positive end to the week, closed at the lowest week-ending price ($17.52) since May 11. Since the March 19 bottoming at $12 an ounce, the trend has been higher, though it's been a slow grind despite high demand, shortages, huge premiums, and shipping delays.
Gold was flattened to $1710.45 on Monday, but rebounded to the high of the week at the close of business in New York Friday, at $1734.75. Like silver, gold has been rangebound since mid-April, suggesting a breakout on the horizon, though it could go either way.
Here are the latest free market prices for select items on eBay (prices include shipping, which is often free):
Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 26.50 / 39.90 / 31.52 / 31.12
1 oz silver bar: 24.75 / 46.00 / 31.35 / 28.70
1 oz gold coin: 1,803.85 / 1,963.52 / 1,875.30 / 1,865.36
1 oz gold bar: 1,780.00 / 1,852.38 / 1,833.92 / 1,840.45
Finally, Fearless Rick nailed the trifecta in the Belmont Stakes, making a public pick prior to the race for everyone. Such generosity! What a guy!
At the close, Friday, June 19, 2020:
Dow: 25,871.46, -208.64 (-0.80%)
NASDAQ: 9,946.12, +3.07 (+0.03%)
S&P 500: 3,097.74, -17.60 (-0.56%)
NYSE: 11,980.12, -92.48 (-0.77%)
For the Week:
Dow: +265.92 (+1.04%)
NASDAQ: +357.31 (+3.73%)
S&P 500: +56.43 (+1.86%)
NYSE: +112.95 (+0.95%)
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Friday, May 29, 2020
Trump Ramps Up Social Media Battle; Argentina Continues Defaulting; Gold, Silver Premiums Persist
Not that anybody should be concerned, but Argentina defaulted on a $500 million interest payment a week ago, on May 22nd. Money Daily had been covering the story but slipped up and missed the breaking news over the Memorial Day Weekend. No excuse. We blew it. 20 lashes.
Anyhow, it's not over down Buenos Aires way, as representatives from both sides - the Argentine government and a gaggle of international creditors - continue to seek a solution, setting a June 2nd date for a plan to restructure $66 billion of the country's debt. Realistically, this being the ninth time Argentina has defaulted on its obligations and the third time this century, hopes of reaching any kind of deal that satisfies both the creditor and debtor seems well removed from the realm of the possible.
President Trump issued another executive order Thursday afternoon, this one coming after Twitter tagged a couple of his tweets with fact-checks.
The order calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act "to make it so that social media companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield," Trump said.
The tweets in question concerned Trump's opposition to mail-in ballots in the upcoming November election, which he believes would result in a cascade of fraud. Twitter added some fact-checking language stating that fraud isn't an issue with absentee ballots.
That, and his announcement of a press conference Friday to address growing concerns over China's dispute with Hong Kong (and now India), sent markets tumbling into the red after making small gains in Thursday's session.
Escalating the situation, early Friday morning, Trump tweeted about the ongoing violence in Minneapolis and elsewhere:
Accessing the President's tweet on the Twitter platform brings up the following message: This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible. Beside it is a button that gives the user the option to display the tweet or keep it hidden. That seems to be an exercise in futility on Twitter's part, possibly drawing even more attention to the tweet in question than had they just left it alone and allowed the public to decide and debate its appropriateness.
Twitter continues to dig its own grave because the President certainly isn't going to back down when he has the complete arsenal of the Department of Justice at his disposal. It's become rather obvious to just about everybody that Twitter, along with their social media counterparts, Google, Facebook, and others, that these companies have abused their free reign over what gets published and where on the internet for a long time without any oversight. Having set up their own rules and guidelines they've often trampled on first amendment rights of users, citing their status as private companies as cover for their subjective agenda.
It would appear that President Trump is serious about limiting their ability to shape opinion. It's certain that the issue will end up in the courts and may take years to resolve. Meanwhile, the mainstream TV networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox, and newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post continue to spread half-truths, fake news, and outright lies on a regular basis. Whether the president's wrath extends to limitations or punishments for biased reporting in other areas of the media remains to be seen, but there is sure to be intense focus on the media leading up to the November elections.
Elsewhere, confusion reigns supreme in the precious metals space. Since mid-March there has been a schism between the futures price of gold and the spot price, with the gap sometimes great enough to encourage arbitrage in a relatively risk-free trade. Usually, the spot price is a few dollars below the futures bid, but the spread has widened and exhibited volatile behavior recently. Silver has also joined the party, with spot and futures prices deviating sporadically.
Of course, the spot and futures prices are little more than bookmarks these days compared to the premium prices being paid for actual physical metal on eBay. Gold and silver are both sporting heavy premiums, with gold selling at the one ounce level at $120-180 over spot and one ounce silver going for $23-30 when the spot price has been hovering in the $16-17 range. Silver, probably the most undervalued commodity in the world, has approached 100% premiums in recent days.
As more people become aware of the fraudulent nature of futures trading where major players such as JP Morgan Chase are allowed to flaunt size limits and engage in spoofing, naked shorting, and are never forced to stand for delivery, physical markets are becoming the go-to for investors with serious intentions of protecting their wealth with precious metals.
Yields in the treasury space rose across the curve on Thursday, with the 30-year bond hitting 1.47%, a two-month high. The spread between the 2-year note (0.17%) and the 30 is now 130 basis points, 10 points higher than a week ago. Tighter lending conditions may not be in the Fed's best interests at this time, but the present issue is likely one of supply. The Fed has been begging fiscal authorities (congress and the president) to unleash more stimulus spending so as to facilitate the Fed's monetizing of the debt, spreading its largesse to equity market participants.
If the government isn't going to ramp up deficit spending, the Fed will be looking over its shoulder at rising rates with too little supply coming to market. This is just one of the unintended consequences of massive money printing on a global scale. At some point, with all hands outstretched, there's not enough to go around and a struggle is engaged for the scraps thrown to the market. The Fed is committed to buying everything, but if there's not enough everything around, they risk severe impairment of credit markets.
Congress needs to get on the bandwagon with all due alacrity lest the Fed run out of debt to monetize, jeopardizing the massive stock rally they have recently engendered.
Finally, in spite of the price of oil (once again, on the futures market) having roughly doubled over the past month, and with it, rising gas prices at the pump, there's still a massive glut on the supply side and slack demand against it. WTI crude in the $32-36 range is a resistance level the market will find difficult to overcome. Economies aren't roaring back to life following the global lockdowns, rather, they're reengaging in fits and starts, and not nearly at capacity. The major oil producers have done their level best to halt the price decline, but there's only so much production that can be cut from counties whose very existence relies upon regular selling of crude oil.
The summer, if authorities allow free movement, should be affordable, at least as concerns automotive touring.
Friday's trading session opens in a little more than an hour from this posting. With the Dow ahead by nearly 1000 points this week, unless there's a major pullback on Friday, Wall Street will shove another fat week of gains into America's face.
At the Close, Thursday, May 28, 2020:
Dow: 25,400.64, -147.63 (-0.58%)
NASDAQ: 9,368.99, -43.37 (-0.46%)
S&P 500: 3,029.73, -6.40 (-0.21%)
NYSE: 11,804.91, -32.62 (-0.28%)
Anyhow, it's not over down Buenos Aires way, as representatives from both sides - the Argentine government and a gaggle of international creditors - continue to seek a solution, setting a June 2nd date for a plan to restructure $66 billion of the country's debt. Realistically, this being the ninth time Argentina has defaulted on its obligations and the third time this century, hopes of reaching any kind of deal that satisfies both the creditor and debtor seems well removed from the realm of the possible.
President Trump issued another executive order Thursday afternoon, this one coming after Twitter tagged a couple of his tweets with fact-checks.
The order calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act "to make it so that social media companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield," Trump said.
The tweets in question concerned Trump's opposition to mail-in ballots in the upcoming November election, which he believes would result in a cascade of fraud. Twitter added some fact-checking language stating that fraud isn't an issue with absentee ballots.
That, and his announcement of a press conference Friday to address growing concerns over China's dispute with Hong Kong (and now India), sent markets tumbling into the red after making small gains in Thursday's session.
Escalating the situation, early Friday morning, Trump tweeted about the ongoing violence in Minneapolis and elsewhere:
....These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020
Accessing the President's tweet on the Twitter platform brings up the following message: This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible. Beside it is a button that gives the user the option to display the tweet or keep it hidden. That seems to be an exercise in futility on Twitter's part, possibly drawing even more attention to the tweet in question than had they just left it alone and allowed the public to decide and debate its appropriateness.
Twitter continues to dig its own grave because the President certainly isn't going to back down when he has the complete arsenal of the Department of Justice at his disposal. It's become rather obvious to just about everybody that Twitter, along with their social media counterparts, Google, Facebook, and others, that these companies have abused their free reign over what gets published and where on the internet for a long time without any oversight. Having set up their own rules and guidelines they've often trampled on first amendment rights of users, citing their status as private companies as cover for their subjective agenda.
It would appear that President Trump is serious about limiting their ability to shape opinion. It's certain that the issue will end up in the courts and may take years to resolve. Meanwhile, the mainstream TV networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox, and newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post continue to spread half-truths, fake news, and outright lies on a regular basis. Whether the president's wrath extends to limitations or punishments for biased reporting in other areas of the media remains to be seen, but there is sure to be intense focus on the media leading up to the November elections.
Elsewhere, confusion reigns supreme in the precious metals space. Since mid-March there has been a schism between the futures price of gold and the spot price, with the gap sometimes great enough to encourage arbitrage in a relatively risk-free trade. Usually, the spot price is a few dollars below the futures bid, but the spread has widened and exhibited volatile behavior recently. Silver has also joined the party, with spot and futures prices deviating sporadically.
Of course, the spot and futures prices are little more than bookmarks these days compared to the premium prices being paid for actual physical metal on eBay. Gold and silver are both sporting heavy premiums, with gold selling at the one ounce level at $120-180 over spot and one ounce silver going for $23-30 when the spot price has been hovering in the $16-17 range. Silver, probably the most undervalued commodity in the world, has approached 100% premiums in recent days.
As more people become aware of the fraudulent nature of futures trading where major players such as JP Morgan Chase are allowed to flaunt size limits and engage in spoofing, naked shorting, and are never forced to stand for delivery, physical markets are becoming the go-to for investors with serious intentions of protecting their wealth with precious metals.
Yields in the treasury space rose across the curve on Thursday, with the 30-year bond hitting 1.47%, a two-month high. The spread between the 2-year note (0.17%) and the 30 is now 130 basis points, 10 points higher than a week ago. Tighter lending conditions may not be in the Fed's best interests at this time, but the present issue is likely one of supply. The Fed has been begging fiscal authorities (congress and the president) to unleash more stimulus spending so as to facilitate the Fed's monetizing of the debt, spreading its largesse to equity market participants.
If the government isn't going to ramp up deficit spending, the Fed will be looking over its shoulder at rising rates with too little supply coming to market. This is just one of the unintended consequences of massive money printing on a global scale. At some point, with all hands outstretched, there's not enough to go around and a struggle is engaged for the scraps thrown to the market. The Fed is committed to buying everything, but if there's not enough everything around, they risk severe impairment of credit markets.
Congress needs to get on the bandwagon with all due alacrity lest the Fed run out of debt to monetize, jeopardizing the massive stock rally they have recently engendered.
Finally, in spite of the price of oil (once again, on the futures market) having roughly doubled over the past month, and with it, rising gas prices at the pump, there's still a massive glut on the supply side and slack demand against it. WTI crude in the $32-36 range is a resistance level the market will find difficult to overcome. Economies aren't roaring back to life following the global lockdowns, rather, they're reengaging in fits and starts, and not nearly at capacity. The major oil producers have done their level best to halt the price decline, but there's only so much production that can be cut from counties whose very existence relies upon regular selling of crude oil.
The summer, if authorities allow free movement, should be affordable, at least as concerns automotive touring.
Friday's trading session opens in a little more than an hour from this posting. With the Dow ahead by nearly 1000 points this week, unless there's a major pullback on Friday, Wall Street will shove another fat week of gains into America's face.
At the Close, Thursday, May 28, 2020:
Dow: 25,400.64, -147.63 (-0.58%)
NASDAQ: 9,368.99, -43.37 (-0.46%)
S&P 500: 3,029.73, -6.40 (-0.21%)
NYSE: 11,804.91, -32.62 (-0.28%)
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
FAANGs Whacked Again As Investors Pull Back From Tech Space
Netflix was murdered in trading on Wednesday as investors reacted to a report by Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty that Apple plans to launch a competing video service though the company has to date made no announcement.
It was enough to take seriously, and money flowed out of Netflix (NFLX) to the tune of a 22.42-point decline, off a whopping 6.17% at the close. Apple's stock barely budged, but in fact was down 1.49 (-0.65%).
A day after topping $1 trillion in market cap, Amazon (AMZN) shed 44 points to close at 1994.82, a solid two-percent decline.
Alphabet (GOOG), parent of Google was lower by 10.82 (-0.88%), and Tesla lost nearly three percent, closing at 280.74, reaching its lowest closing point since May 25.
Facebook lost nearly four points to finish the day at 167.18, a four-month low.
All of this trading occurred while tech executives were brought before congress to testify in a wide-ranging probe of the unregulated social media space. Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey faced congressional scrutiny before a select committee of senators and House representatives. It's political theater at its very best, with lawmakers preening and getting in good soundbites in the lead to the midterm elections in two months.
Wishing for nothing less than to regulate free speech on the internet, congress is unlikely to have much impact upon the operation of the social media behemoths. As private enterprises, these mammoth companies are free to do as they please, from banning users who upset their dilettante views to promoting largely socialist idealism.
While the hearings make for some useful political jabbing, the congress shows by its naive use of forums such as these that they are as much a part of the problem as the companies themselves. Since most politicians use social media platforms to promote their particular agendas, dragging big company executives to Capitol Hill is more red herring than serious hearings.
While congress browbeats, investors are keenly aware that some of these companies are seriously overvalued. Tesla, for instance, is down 100 points in less than a month's time, exceeding a 25% decline. Facebook is off 50 points since July 25 and is likewise trading under bear market conditions, down nearly 24% over the last six weeks.
With the current round of tech profit-taking having a serious effect on investor confidence in the space, the staid stocks of the Dow gained slightly on the day, barely moving the needle. Elsewhere, stocks were roiled worldwide, as emerging market conditions continue to deteriorate.
The September swoon is gathering momentum and a more severe decline may be dead ahead for US stocks despite a booming economy and low unemployment. The main problems are rising interest rates and fundamental overvaluation issues.
Dow Jones Industrial Average September Scorecard:
At the Close, Wednesday, September 5, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 25,974.99, +22.51 (+0.09%)
NASDAQ: 7,995.17, -96.07 (-1.19%)
S&P 500: 2,888.60, -8.12 (-0.28%)
NYSE Composite: 12,968.55, -1.31 (-0.01%)
It was enough to take seriously, and money flowed out of Netflix (NFLX) to the tune of a 22.42-point decline, off a whopping 6.17% at the close. Apple's stock barely budged, but in fact was down 1.49 (-0.65%).
A day after topping $1 trillion in market cap, Amazon (AMZN) shed 44 points to close at 1994.82, a solid two-percent decline.
Alphabet (GOOG), parent of Google was lower by 10.82 (-0.88%), and Tesla lost nearly three percent, closing at 280.74, reaching its lowest closing point since May 25.
Facebook lost nearly four points to finish the day at 167.18, a four-month low.
All of this trading occurred while tech executives were brought before congress to testify in a wide-ranging probe of the unregulated social media space. Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey faced congressional scrutiny before a select committee of senators and House representatives. It's political theater at its very best, with lawmakers preening and getting in good soundbites in the lead to the midterm elections in two months.
Wishing for nothing less than to regulate free speech on the internet, congress is unlikely to have much impact upon the operation of the social media behemoths. As private enterprises, these mammoth companies are free to do as they please, from banning users who upset their dilettante views to promoting largely socialist idealism.
While the hearings make for some useful political jabbing, the congress shows by its naive use of forums such as these that they are as much a part of the problem as the companies themselves. Since most politicians use social media platforms to promote their particular agendas, dragging big company executives to Capitol Hill is more red herring than serious hearings.
While congress browbeats, investors are keenly aware that some of these companies are seriously overvalued. Tesla, for instance, is down 100 points in less than a month's time, exceeding a 25% decline. Facebook is off 50 points since July 25 and is likewise trading under bear market conditions, down nearly 24% over the last six weeks.
With the current round of tech profit-taking having a serious effect on investor confidence in the space, the staid stocks of the Dow gained slightly on the day, barely moving the needle. Elsewhere, stocks were roiled worldwide, as emerging market conditions continue to deteriorate.
The September swoon is gathering momentum and a more severe decline may be dead ahead for US stocks despite a booming economy and low unemployment. The main problems are rising interest rates and fundamental overvaluation issues.
Dow Jones Industrial Average September Scorecard:
| Date | Close | Gain/Loss | Cum. G/L |
| 9/4/18 | 25,952.48 | -12.34 | -12.34 |
| 9/5/18 | 25,974.99 | +22.51 | +10.17 |
At the Close, Wednesday, September 5, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 25,974.99, +22.51 (+0.09%)
NASDAQ: 7,995.17, -96.07 (-1.19%)
S&P 500: 2,888.60, -8.12 (-0.28%)
NYSE Composite: 12,968.55, -1.31 (-0.01%)
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Stocks Flat to Lower After Disappointing ADP Employment Report
Stocks could not extend Tuesday's relief rally after hearing the ADP January Employment Report, which assumed US private sector job growth of 175,000, when estimates were for 185,000.
Note the use of the word "assumes" in the foregoing paragraph, because ADP does not rely upon hard data, but extrapolates and models from sampling, thus their estimates are often far afield from reality, as displayed clearly last month, when the private firm called 238,000 job growth (revised down to 227,000) and two days later, the BLS offered 74,000 in their monthly non-farm payroll data series.
Who's right and who's wrong is not the question. The question is who can be trusted, and clearly, with the goal-sought nature of economic data reports in the "Fed era" of economics in which we currently reside, the answer is, nobody.
Anecdotal and real-life experience may be more instructive than government or private data releases at this juncture, and, by most accounts, in most areas of the United States, there are few hirings and the jobs offered are either part-time or menial or both. The job market is definitely not what one could in any way, shape or form, call robust.
Stocks took a bumpy ride - mostly on the downside - to get to generally unchanged on the day. Being that the ADP numbers have long been deemed untrustworthy, most speculators are attempting to hang in the market until Friday, when the BLS releases January jobs numbers, which, if the weather is any guide, figure to be uninspiring.
The good news came in the form of gold and silver gains on the day, though, as has been noted, cannot be met with much enthusiasm, since the precious metals have been largely range-bound for the past three months and show no signs of breaking out. Still, those investing in hard assets have to be sleeping better than their counterparts in equities, since they can at least claim some degree of stability during the past six weeks of general market declines.
Reporting after the bell was Twitter (TWTR), showing a gain of two cents (ex-items) for the fourth quarter, against estimates of a two cent loss. User growth was around eight million for the quarter, below estimates, which sent the stock down 10-15% in after-hours trading. Regarding Twitter's valuation of 57-58 dollars per share, assuming they make ten cents in all of 2014, puts their price-earnings ration somewhere in the ionosphere, around 570-580. They don't call it speculation for nothing, folks.
Despite the small losses in the headline numbers, internals were rather nasty. The A-D line was nearly 2-1 in favor of losers and new 52-week lows were triple the number of new highs, an indicator which is trending very negatively.
Bonds sold off, sending the 10-year note to 2.67% yield, and the 3-month and 6-month bills matched up at at yield of 0.06, not an encouraging trend either, as, if they invert, history tells us conclusively that recessions follow, and a recession is not anything the economy can withstand right now.
DOW 15,440.23, -5.01 (-0.03%)
NASDAQ 4,011.55, -19.97 (-0.50%)
S&P 1,751.64, -3.56 (-0.20%)
10-Yr Note 100.67, -0.33 (-0.33%) Yield: 2.67
NASDAQ VOLUME 1.96 Bil
NYSE Volume 3.97 Bil
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2065-3617
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 51-154
WTI crude oil: 97.38, +0.19
Gold: 1,256.90, +5.70
Silver: 19.80, +0.383
Corn: 443.25, +1.50
Note the use of the word "assumes" in the foregoing paragraph, because ADP does not rely upon hard data, but extrapolates and models from sampling, thus their estimates are often far afield from reality, as displayed clearly last month, when the private firm called 238,000 job growth (revised down to 227,000) and two days later, the BLS offered 74,000 in their monthly non-farm payroll data series.
Who's right and who's wrong is not the question. The question is who can be trusted, and clearly, with the goal-sought nature of economic data reports in the "Fed era" of economics in which we currently reside, the answer is, nobody.
Anecdotal and real-life experience may be more instructive than government or private data releases at this juncture, and, by most accounts, in most areas of the United States, there are few hirings and the jobs offered are either part-time or menial or both. The job market is definitely not what one could in any way, shape or form, call robust.
Stocks took a bumpy ride - mostly on the downside - to get to generally unchanged on the day. Being that the ADP numbers have long been deemed untrustworthy, most speculators are attempting to hang in the market until Friday, when the BLS releases January jobs numbers, which, if the weather is any guide, figure to be uninspiring.
The good news came in the form of gold and silver gains on the day, though, as has been noted, cannot be met with much enthusiasm, since the precious metals have been largely range-bound for the past three months and show no signs of breaking out. Still, those investing in hard assets have to be sleeping better than their counterparts in equities, since they can at least claim some degree of stability during the past six weeks of general market declines.
Reporting after the bell was Twitter (TWTR), showing a gain of two cents (ex-items) for the fourth quarter, against estimates of a two cent loss. User growth was around eight million for the quarter, below estimates, which sent the stock down 10-15% in after-hours trading. Regarding Twitter's valuation of 57-58 dollars per share, assuming they make ten cents in all of 2014, puts their price-earnings ration somewhere in the ionosphere, around 570-580. They don't call it speculation for nothing, folks.
Despite the small losses in the headline numbers, internals were rather nasty. The A-D line was nearly 2-1 in favor of losers and new 52-week lows were triple the number of new highs, an indicator which is trending very negatively.
Bonds sold off, sending the 10-year note to 2.67% yield, and the 3-month and 6-month bills matched up at at yield of 0.06, not an encouraging trend either, as, if they invert, history tells us conclusively that recessions follow, and a recession is not anything the economy can withstand right now.
DOW 15,440.23, -5.01 (-0.03%)
NASDAQ 4,011.55, -19.97 (-0.50%)
S&P 1,751.64, -3.56 (-0.20%)
10-Yr Note 100.67, -0.33 (-0.33%) Yield: 2.67
NASDAQ VOLUME 1.96 Bil
NYSE Volume 3.97 Bil
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2065-3617
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 51-154
WTI crude oil: 97.38, +0.19
Gold: 1,256.90, +5.70
Silver: 19.80, +0.383
Corn: 443.25, +1.50
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Wall Street Pouts Despite Twitter IPO; Jobs Data on Deck
Busy day today for the gods of greed, buyers of bluster, falcons of fraud, purveyors of prevarication.
Wall Street was all a-twitter over the IPO of Twitter (TWTR), the latest Web 2.0 mega-fad company gone public, which opened today on the NYSE with a bang. The stock was issued at 26, but opened at 44, quickly ramped up above 50 per share and closed at 44.90, good for a 78% gain. The company - based on "tweets" of 140 characters - is valued at about 29 times sales, pretty rich, especially for a enterprise that's still losing money. Well, at least the founders are now billionaires... on paper.
Prior to the opening bell, there was a flurry of activity from across the Atlantic pond, as Europe's Mario Draghi, ECB president extraordinaire, announced key rate cuts of 25 basis points, leaving the base rate at .25 and the key lending rate at .50. Observers in America wondered what took the Euros so long, though one must consider that they have been in the business of wrecking their own economies and fleecing the public a lot longer than their American counterparts, so they can kick the old can-can a lot longer and down an even shorter road without causing much of a stir.
The response from traders across the continent and in the UK was resoundingly mixed, with the German DAX higher, Britain's FTSE lower and the French CAC-40 barely changed. Don't these people understand the concept of cheap money? Pikers, the lot of them, except, of course, for the stodgy, stingy, and oh-so-proper Germans.
At 8:30 am ET, the US blasted off a couple of economic indicators, releasing the first reading on third quarter GDP at a robust 2.8%, a ribald lie if ever there was one, but enough to scare the few remaining hairs off the head of Lloyd Blankfien and others of his balding ilk. Good news is once again bad news, it appears, and any growth approaching three percent in the US sends shivers up the spineless bankers' backs, because they believe their buddies, Mr. Bernanke and the incoming Mr. Yellen, may cease the easy money programs that has catapulted every dishonest banker into ever-higher tax brackets.
The most recent initial unemployment claims - which were down 9,000 from the previous week, at 336,000, remained stubbornly high, though apparently not quite high enough for the barons of buyouts. These dopes saw this as another sign of a strengthening US economy, so, shortly after the opening bell, stocks did an abrupt about-face and trended lower throughout the session, with little respite.
In other news, Goldman Sachs is under investigation for rigging foreign exchange (FOREX) trading and just about everything else they do, and, yesterday, the Blackstone Group began pitching its rent-backed securities.
Really. They did. And some people actually bought them.
The advance-decline line cratered, with losers leading gainers by a 7:2 ratio, and new lows continue to close the gap on daily new highs, a trend metric that may just flip over if today's losses are indeed presaging something un-funny about tomorrow's delayed October non-farm jobs data, due out an hour before the opening bell. The way to read this is that the government is likely to report that something in the range of 120-150,000 new jobs were created during the month, which would be more proof of economic improvement, exactly what the market doesn't want. Either that, or it's going to be a real stink-bomb, because the forecast is only for 100,000.
Business as usual, my friends. Monkey business, that is.
Dow 15,593.98, -152.90 (0.97%)
Nasdaq 3,857.33, -74.61 (1.90%)
S&P 500 1,747.15, -23.34 (1.32%)
10-Yr Bond 2.61%, -0.03
NYSE Volume 4,092,416,000
Nasdaq Volume 2,196,542,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1276-4371
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 197-101
WTI crude oil: 94.20, -0.60
Gold: 1,308.50, -9.30
Silver: 21.66, -0.111
Corn: 420.50, -0.75
Wall Street was all a-twitter over the IPO of Twitter (TWTR), the latest Web 2.0 mega-fad company gone public, which opened today on the NYSE with a bang. The stock was issued at 26, but opened at 44, quickly ramped up above 50 per share and closed at 44.90, good for a 78% gain. The company - based on "tweets" of 140 characters - is valued at about 29 times sales, pretty rich, especially for a enterprise that's still losing money. Well, at least the founders are now billionaires... on paper.
Prior to the opening bell, there was a flurry of activity from across the Atlantic pond, as Europe's Mario Draghi, ECB president extraordinaire, announced key rate cuts of 25 basis points, leaving the base rate at .25 and the key lending rate at .50. Observers in America wondered what took the Euros so long, though one must consider that they have been in the business of wrecking their own economies and fleecing the public a lot longer than their American counterparts, so they can kick the old can-can a lot longer and down an even shorter road without causing much of a stir.
The response from traders across the continent and in the UK was resoundingly mixed, with the German DAX higher, Britain's FTSE lower and the French CAC-40 barely changed. Don't these people understand the concept of cheap money? Pikers, the lot of them, except, of course, for the stodgy, stingy, and oh-so-proper Germans.
At 8:30 am ET, the US blasted off a couple of economic indicators, releasing the first reading on third quarter GDP at a robust 2.8%, a ribald lie if ever there was one, but enough to scare the few remaining hairs off the head of Lloyd Blankfien and others of his balding ilk. Good news is once again bad news, it appears, and any growth approaching three percent in the US sends shivers up the spineless bankers' backs, because they believe their buddies, Mr. Bernanke and the incoming Mr. Yellen, may cease the easy money programs that has catapulted every dishonest banker into ever-higher tax brackets.
The most recent initial unemployment claims - which were down 9,000 from the previous week, at 336,000, remained stubbornly high, though apparently not quite high enough for the barons of buyouts. These dopes saw this as another sign of a strengthening US economy, so, shortly after the opening bell, stocks did an abrupt about-face and trended lower throughout the session, with little respite.
In other news, Goldman Sachs is under investigation for rigging foreign exchange (FOREX) trading and just about everything else they do, and, yesterday, the Blackstone Group began pitching its rent-backed securities.
Really. They did. And some people actually bought them.
The advance-decline line cratered, with losers leading gainers by a 7:2 ratio, and new lows continue to close the gap on daily new highs, a trend metric that may just flip over if today's losses are indeed presaging something un-funny about tomorrow's delayed October non-farm jobs data, due out an hour before the opening bell. The way to read this is that the government is likely to report that something in the range of 120-150,000 new jobs were created during the month, which would be more proof of economic improvement, exactly what the market doesn't want. Either that, or it's going to be a real stink-bomb, because the forecast is only for 100,000.
Business as usual, my friends. Monkey business, that is.
Dow 15,593.98, -152.90 (0.97%)
Nasdaq 3,857.33, -74.61 (1.90%)
S&P 500 1,747.15, -23.34 (1.32%)
10-Yr Bond 2.61%, -0.03
NYSE Volume 4,092,416,000
Nasdaq Volume 2,196,542,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1276-4371
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 197-101
WTI crude oil: 94.20, -0.60
Gold: 1,308.50, -9.30
Silver: 21.66, -0.111
Corn: 420.50, -0.75
Friday, October 25, 2013
Sluggish Session Sends S&P to All-Time Highs in Final Half-Hour
The headline tells almost the whole story. Stocks languished in a narrow trading range all day until doubling gains in the final half hour. There was absolutely nothing newsworthy by which to move stocks in any particular direction.
All hail day-traders and Mr. Janet Yellen. Oh, and Twitter, the money-losing company with an estimated IPO value of $16 billion.
Cheers.
Dow 15,570.28, +61.07 (0.39%)
Nasdaq 3,943.36, +14.40 (0.37%)
S&P 500 1,759.77, +7.70 (0.44%)
10-Yr Bond 2.50%, -0.02
NYSE Volume 3,102,796,500
Nasdaq Volume 2,119,699,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2948-2668 (breadth, anyone?)
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 472-29 (mark-to-fantasy)
WTI crude oil: 97.85, +0.74
Gold: 1,352.50, +2.20
Silver: 22.64, -0.183
Corn: 440.00, -0.25
All hail day-traders and Mr. Janet Yellen. Oh, and Twitter, the money-losing company with an estimated IPO value of $16 billion.
Cheers.
Dow 15,570.28, +61.07 (0.39%)
Nasdaq 3,943.36, +14.40 (0.37%)
S&P 500 1,759.77, +7.70 (0.44%)
10-Yr Bond 2.50%, -0.02
NYSE Volume 3,102,796,500
Nasdaq Volume 2,119,699,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2948-2668 (breadth, anyone?)
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 472-29 (mark-to-fantasy)
WTI crude oil: 97.85, +0.74
Gold: 1,352.50, +2.20
Silver: 22.64, -0.183
Corn: 440.00, -0.25
Friday, February 24, 2012
Playing the Market, Twitter-Mob Style; Mogambo Guru Returns
It was certainly an exciting - if uneventful (depending on perspective) - end to the week, as the pumpers on CNBC breathlessly kept viewers in a strange state of animated suspense and anticipation over whether the Dow would actually close above the "psychologically important" (only to them) 13,000 level and the wrangling over details of the latest Greek bailout continued apace across the pond.
But, a funny thing happened on the way to 13,000 - or rather on the way down away from it - this morning, shortly after 10:00 am ET.
With the Dow at what would become the highs of the day, a sudden about-face took place, sending the index screaming for mercy in a 37-point drop over a roughly ten minute span.
Moves like this are not uncommon in the world of fast-paced HTF algos (a subject which has been noted here all too often in the past), but today's event might have had a bit of a different skew. Yesterday afternoon, a group of individuals (no names, please) decided to have a bit of fun, or mischief, possibly at the expense of the well-heeled crowd that convenes on Wall Street regularly.
A plan was concocted to see if a bunch of unrelated, inconspicuous internet users could have an effect on the HTF algos, which, as we know, track headlines from the likes of Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, but also follow trends on social websites like Facebook and Twitter.
The idea was that everyone would Tweet, at precisely 10:03 am, "Greece defaults" and see if the dumb algos would fall for the bait. The tweets went out, not all at the same time, and not uniform by any means, though the 10:03 time-stamp was extended, with various mentions of Greece defaulting flowing into the Twitter-verse in earnest for about twenty minutes.
Whether the tweeters actually managed to trip up the HFT traders and their zipity-do-dah algorithms is now and will likely forever be a matter of speculation, but if there were an actual cause and effect, it brings some interesting - and scary - possibilities to the table.
Suppose such crowd-sourced media were actually effective in moving the algos, thus affecting the price of an entire index? What then would be the effect on an individual stock? Were a group of people intent of making some money with this trick, it might be easier than anyone imagines, somewhat akin to elevator whisper campaigns designed to take down candidates in local elections or the old pump-and-dump strategies that were so effective in the early dotcom days of the internet, circa 1998-2001.
A plan could easily be put together to move a stock a few points in one direction or another, with appropriate bets placed by those "in the know." If truly effective, the profits could be staggering. Truth is, that's probably what has been happening in the US markets and elsewhere for quite some time, but especially theses days, as the market seems less than reluctant to trade on rumors and headlines rather than fundamentals.
Whatever the case, today's experiment via Twitter might raise a few eyebrows and give people some ideas. As for 13,000 on the Dow, the CNBC presenters and those with an emotional tie to the number will just have to wait until next week.
The other major development of the day also took place on the internet, and actually happened on Thursday, when the frightful visage of the Mogambo Guru suddenly reappeared sporting his own blog. The majestic Mogambo Guru (MMG) had been a regular typist and word-twister of financial follies on the Daily Reckoning for a long time, though he had taken an absence from penning the occasional witty and irreverent column (OWAIC).
Now that he's back and regularly submitting his thoughts to the public via a blog there should be little doubt that his hordes of faithful followers (HHOFF) will flock to his work like... ummm, bees to honey, or something like that.
Welcome back, oh great, glorious, hallowed, devious and mischievous Guru! Your absence left a hold in the fabric of time and space, but we're sure you'll be promptly attending to mending it.
Just a few quick notes for the weekend:
Today's volume, which has been horribly anemic on a regular basis anyway, was fairly ghastly today, the lowest in a decade, notes ZeroHedge.
There's a meeting of the G20 in Mexico City over the weekend in which the big fight is supposed to be between the IMF's Christine Lagarde and the finance ministers and representatives of Germany. The IMF wants more dough and the Germans are tiring of spending so much. Besides the main event, the undercard features thousands of police in riot gear protecting the one percenters from rock-hurling Mexican hooligans and potentially, armed drug cartel operatives. One has to admit that setting a meeting of world leaders in a place as dangerous as Mexico City offers a bit of intrigue, to say nothing of its inducement to all kinds of mayhem.
Dow 12,982.95, -1.74 (0.01%)
NASDAQ 2,963.75, +6.77 (0.23%)
S&P 500 1,365.74, +2.28 (0.17%)
NYSE Composite 8,151.96, +15.72 (0.19%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,641,587,000
NYSE Volume 3,367,789,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2827-2792
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 281-11 (Really?)
WTI crude oil: 109.77, +1.94 (pain at the pump)
Gold: 1,776.40, -9.90
Silver: 35.34, -0.22
But, a funny thing happened on the way to 13,000 - or rather on the way down away from it - this morning, shortly after 10:00 am ET.
With the Dow at what would become the highs of the day, a sudden about-face took place, sending the index screaming for mercy in a 37-point drop over a roughly ten minute span.
Moves like this are not uncommon in the world of fast-paced HTF algos (a subject which has been noted here all too often in the past), but today's event might have had a bit of a different skew. Yesterday afternoon, a group of individuals (no names, please) decided to have a bit of fun, or mischief, possibly at the expense of the well-heeled crowd that convenes on Wall Street regularly.
A plan was concocted to see if a bunch of unrelated, inconspicuous internet users could have an effect on the HTF algos, which, as we know, track headlines from the likes of Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, but also follow trends on social websites like Facebook and Twitter.
The idea was that everyone would Tweet, at precisely 10:03 am, "Greece defaults" and see if the dumb algos would fall for the bait. The tweets went out, not all at the same time, and not uniform by any means, though the 10:03 time-stamp was extended, with various mentions of Greece defaulting flowing into the Twitter-verse in earnest for about twenty minutes.
Whether the tweeters actually managed to trip up the HFT traders and their zipity-do-dah algorithms is now and will likely forever be a matter of speculation, but if there were an actual cause and effect, it brings some interesting - and scary - possibilities to the table.
Suppose such crowd-sourced media were actually effective in moving the algos, thus affecting the price of an entire index? What then would be the effect on an individual stock? Were a group of people intent of making some money with this trick, it might be easier than anyone imagines, somewhat akin to elevator whisper campaigns designed to take down candidates in local elections or the old pump-and-dump strategies that were so effective in the early dotcom days of the internet, circa 1998-2001.
A plan could easily be put together to move a stock a few points in one direction or another, with appropriate bets placed by those "in the know." If truly effective, the profits could be staggering. Truth is, that's probably what has been happening in the US markets and elsewhere for quite some time, but especially theses days, as the market seems less than reluctant to trade on rumors and headlines rather than fundamentals.
Whatever the case, today's experiment via Twitter might raise a few eyebrows and give people some ideas. As for 13,000 on the Dow, the CNBC presenters and those with an emotional tie to the number will just have to wait until next week.
The other major development of the day also took place on the internet, and actually happened on Thursday, when the frightful visage of the Mogambo Guru suddenly reappeared sporting his own blog. The majestic Mogambo Guru (MMG) had been a regular typist and word-twister of financial follies on the Daily Reckoning for a long time, though he had taken an absence from penning the occasional witty and irreverent column (OWAIC).
Now that he's back and regularly submitting his thoughts to the public via a blog there should be little doubt that his hordes of faithful followers (HHOFF) will flock to his work like... ummm, bees to honey, or something like that.
Welcome back, oh great, glorious, hallowed, devious and mischievous Guru! Your absence left a hold in the fabric of time and space, but we're sure you'll be promptly attending to mending it.
Just a few quick notes for the weekend:
Today's volume, which has been horribly anemic on a regular basis anyway, was fairly ghastly today, the lowest in a decade, notes ZeroHedge.
There's a meeting of the G20 in Mexico City over the weekend in which the big fight is supposed to be between the IMF's Christine Lagarde and the finance ministers and representatives of Germany. The IMF wants more dough and the Germans are tiring of spending so much. Besides the main event, the undercard features thousands of police in riot gear protecting the one percenters from rock-hurling Mexican hooligans and potentially, armed drug cartel operatives. One has to admit that setting a meeting of world leaders in a place as dangerous as Mexico City offers a bit of intrigue, to say nothing of its inducement to all kinds of mayhem.
Dow 12,982.95, -1.74 (0.01%)
NASDAQ 2,963.75, +6.77 (0.23%)
S&P 500 1,365.74, +2.28 (0.17%)
NYSE Composite 8,151.96, +15.72 (0.19%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,641,587,000
NYSE Volume 3,367,789,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2827-2792
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 281-11 (Really?)
WTI crude oil: 109.77, +1.94 (pain at the pump)
Gold: 1,776.40, -9.90
Silver: 35.34, -0.22
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