No Follow-Through for Stocks After Monday's Fake Ramp-Fest

Stocks opened higher but quickly reversed direction, resulting in the second-largest one-day point drop on the Dow Industrials in May.

Coincidentally, the lower close occurred on a Tuesday, similar to last week's Tuesday trashing of 193 points.

The financial media attributed the quick turnaround to President Trump's wavering on China trade negotiations, just as Monday's advance was credited to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's announcement that the proposed tariffs on imports from China were "on hold."

For weeks, the public has been fed nauseating nonsense about stocks reacting to trade and tariff proposals from President Trump and his administration, particularly relating to China. The idea that a single event or series of events, which, in fact, should be positive for American businesses, affecting the entire stock market is ludicrous on the surface and either disingenuous or naive reportage by the financial press.

Stocks have been trading in fits and starts since early February due, not to tariffs or day-to-day events, but, to larger economic issues and obvious overvaluation foisted upon the investing public by Wall Street hucksters and the phony incentives and spurious mutterings from Federal Reserve officials.

There is nothing even remotely connected to tariffs and trade affecting the price levels of stocks, especially since the president's tariffs are only proposals and not in force. Besides the obvious benefit the United States would obtain from lowering its trade deficit with the Chinese, just what is it that is so ominous and wrong about the imposition of tariffs that would level the trade playing field?

The rhetoric surrounding the proposed tariffs reeks of the same kind of anti-Trump noise heard from the mainstream media for the past eighteen months.

Normally, in a free market, stocks rise and fall based upon fundamental valuation metrics and some degree of emotion-based trading from the Wall Street herd. The current environment, driven by computer algorithms which respond to news headlines in knee-jerk fashion, is neither normal nor free.

It's time for a reversion to the mean and a restoration of of sanity in markets and the larger economy. This implies a devaluation of stocks across the board, a quieting of the voices which drive speculation, and regulations designed to minimize the effect of computer-driven excesses.

At the Close, Tuesday, May 22, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 24,834.41, -178.88 (-0.72%)
NASDAQ: 7,378.4551, -15.5811 (-0.21%)
S&P 500: 2,724.44, -8.57 (-0.31%)
NYSE Composite: 12,766.65, -37.36 (-0.29%)

Stocks Under Pressure; Bulls All Die At Some Point

Anybody who believes that this current bull market - fueled by easy money policies from central banks, fake statistics, and enormous government deficits - will continue much longer needs to take a reality check.

Just for those who cannot or will not see the forest for the trees, the following:

• The 10-year-note is stuck in a perpetual yield range of 2.3-something.
• Stocks have been going sideways for week.
• There's almost no chance that the congress will pass any kind of tax reform bill this year as they are doing nothing more than posturing for the midterm elections.
• The national debt continues to soar to new heights, despite happy talk from the administration (remember, congress holds the purse-strings).
• The percentage of people in the workforce is still at near-record lows.
• The Us trade deficit with China is not shrinking.
• State pension plans and many private pension plans are underfunded by trillions of dollars.
• Voting doesn't matter (see the fiasco over Roy Moore)
• Corporate profits are beginning to show serious signs of a slowdown (GE, Chipolte, others)
• Foreclosures, bankruptcies, student loan defaults are rising.

That is just a sampling, and today's market, in form with the past few sessions, took a nosedive at the open only to recover thanks to spirited heavy lifting by the PPT or central bank cronies on the heaviest volume in five months.

The Dow was down 168 points shortly after 10:00 am ET, only to close with a marginal loss. Even at its lowest point, the index was 900 points above its 50-day moving average.

Stocks are as overpriced as they've ever been, setting up for a crash of enormous proportions.

It's coming, but nobody knows when or why it will occur. The Fed is still insistent upon raising interest rates again in December, at a time at which the economy is neither growing fast enough to warrant such behavior nor robust enough to withstand repeated rate hikes.

Over the years, the Federal Reserve has caused more crashes and recessions than it will admit. Uncontrollable spending by government and cascading business and individual debt is reaching unprecedented heights, worse than preceding the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-09.

Extreme caution is advised.


At the Close, Tuesday, November 14, 2017:
Dow: 23,409.47, -30.23 (-0.13%)
NASDAQ: 6,737.87, -19.72 (-0.29%)
S&P 500: 2,578.87, -5.97 (-0.23%)
NYSE Composite: 12,280.11, -36.71 (-0.30%)

Dow Posts First Losing Week of Year

Despite opening and remaining on the upside for the entire session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average still posted its first losing week of 2013, though the losses are quite insignificant.

At the close today, the Dow was down 17 points from the previous Friday, the NASDAQ gained 14 points and the S&P picked up four-and-a-half points, both of the latter on Friday having made up for marginal losses earlier in the week.

Generally speaking, Friday was a fairly dull session in what turned out to be an overall dull week. The one piece of economic data that was positive was the US trade deficit falling to -$38.5B, the lowest in nearly three years.

The fact that stocks have held up so well through the first month of the new year and beyond is rather remarkable, considering the winds of trouble still swirling about. However, there may be reason to take a pause - or profits - as markets seem to have stalled at multi-year highs.

With the Dow and, especially, the S&P nearing all-time highs, a triple-top breakdown could be imminent. Additionally, Sunday marks Chinese New Year with the Year of the Snake designated according to the Chinese astrological calendar. Snake years are usually turbulent. 1941 (Pearl Harbor) and 2001 (September 11) were both Years of the Snake.

Finally, in the video below, Peter Eliades explains how we are on the cusp of a major turning point according to his 9244-day cycle, from his work at Stockmarket Cycles.

Dow 13,992.97, +48.92(0.35%)
NASDAQ 3,193.87, +28.74(0.91%)
S&P 500 1,517.93, +8.54(0.57%)
NYSE Composite 8,930.49, +36.74(0.41%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,776,898,880
NYSE Volume 3,008,696,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4251-2137
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 474-20
WTI crude oil: 95.72, -0.11
Gold: 1,666.90, -4.40
Silver: 31.44, +0.038