All Aboard! CSX Prompts 6th Straight Day of Gains

This is what earnings season is all about.

Investors and traders have waited patiently through two months of severe selling for days in which stocks could outshine a slew of negative economic reports, and it appears - for some, at least - that the waiting is finally paying off.

Stocks surged for the 6th straight session after rail operator, CXS reported strong earnings after Monday's close, citing net income gains of 36% in the second quarter, beating analysts' expectations. Revenue grew 22% to just below $2.7 billion.

Despite the strong report, shares of CSX were lower by about 1.5% on Tuesday, but the upbeat sentiment associated with the company, which hauls coal and countless other raw materials, parts and integrated supplies across the United States, gave traders confidence to bid a wide array of stocks higher.

Dow 10,363.02, +146.75 (1.44%)
NASDAQ 2,242.03, +43.67 (1.99%)
S&P 500 1,095.34, +16.59 (1.54%)
NYSE Composite 6,907.78, +113.30 (1.67%)

Gains were solid across all of the indices and internals were in line with the headline numbers. Advancing issues pummeled decliners, 5486-1025 (5:1), and new highs soared past new lows, 179-48. Volume, however, was not particularly strong, as reticence among potential stock purchasers remained high.

NASDAQ Volume 2,140,849,750
NYSE Volume 5,288,201,500

Commodities trended mostly higher on the day. Crude oil, on the August futures contract, rose $2.20, to $77.15. Gold gained $14.80, to $1,213.30, while silver was up 34 cents, to $18.24.

Announcements after the close on Tuesday were forthcoming from two important companies in vastly different sectors: Intel (INTC) and Yum Brands (YUM).

Intel achieved a smashing success in the second quarter, the best ever in the company's 41-year history, with gross revenue of $10.8 billion, 67% gross margins, operating Income of $4.0 billion, net Income of $2.9 billion and EPS at 51 cents.

The results were well ahead of Street estimates, and completely overturned year-over-year results. For instance, the 51 cent EPS was 183% better than the second quarter of 2009. The company also was very positive about the remainder of the year, with growth expected across all business units.

Stock players were impressed, as shares rose more than 5% in after-hours trading.

When YUM Brands (YUM), owners of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, reported second quarter results, sentiment turned decidedly negative. The company beat analyst estimates narrowly, posting EPS of 58 cents, 3 cents better than the 55 cents anticipated, but revised its full-year forecast to $2.43 a share, with Wall Street expectations at $2.48.

This sent the stock tumbling more than 3% in after-hours trading.

These two bellwether stocks demonstrate the cross-currents in the markets quite adequately. While general economic reports - especially those concerning housing and employment - remain a drag on the economy, companies insist that they are lean and profitable, as shown by the results from YUM Brands and Intel.

What is a conundrum for many, however, is the multiple, or PE at which specific companies are trading. Across the S&P 500, the current cumulative PE is about 15, historically high. Intel is right on that number, including this quarter, at 14.45. YUM's trailing PE (using the most recent past four quarters) is an astronomical 19.22.

In other words, it would take 19 years to recoup an investment in YUM Brands based on earnings per share, and just shy of 15 to break even in Intel. In an economic environment beset with an overburden of debt still growing (government) and some being worked off in the private sector, investors may not feel comfortable with such high multiples. That will keep sentiment on the negative side until these multiples come down to levels more in line with the reality of a slow-growing economy. Something in the neighborhood of 9-12 might be suitable, perhaps even lower.

In the small business world, which is arguably more risky, companies rarely sell for more than six times earnings. More often than not, companies sell for three to four times annual earnings, as small business owners seek minimization of risk and quickly recoup their capital. The big business world of Wall Street, operating on a far loftier basis, may be overpriced by a wide degree. Small investors will not stay put in longer term equities with questionable outcomes.

A return to more reasonable valuations would send stocks into a tailspin, though, following on the deflationary backdrop which has been the dominant trend for the past two to three years, a severe correction, on a valuation basis, may be forthcoming.

Stocks Stall on Aloca Waiting Game

Ahead of earnings from Alcoa, officially kicking off 2nd quarter reporting season, stocks were flatter than paint on a wall. Additionally, volume was at levels not seen in many months, completely lacking in conviction from buyers or sellers.

Still, three major averages managed to post their fifth consecutive day of gains, while the NYSE Composite surrendered a fractional loss.

Dow 10,216.27, +18.24 (0.18%)
NASDAQ 2,198.36, +1.19 (0.06%)
S&P 500 1,078.75, +0.79 (0.01%)
NYSE Composite 6,794.48. -14.23 (-0.22%)

Declining issues finished well ahead of advancing ones, 4185-2170, though new highs registered well in excess of new lows, 158-65. It's likely, as earnings reports begin to appear with regularity, that stocks will get a reprieve from the previous two months of fairly-uninterrupted selling. While corporations may report excellent second quarter results, the underlying economies - in the US and Europe, especially - remain under pressure from excessive government spending and overall flagging economic statistics.

NASDAQ Volume 1,329,977,875
NYSE Volume 2,923,618,750

In the commodities space, gold gained $6.70, to $1,205.20; silver added 18 cents, to $18.08, but crude oil slipped $1.14, to $74.95, as oil continues to show reluctance to move past the $75 per barrel mark.

Alcoa (AA) announced a .02 beat of street estimates, which is just barely good enough to satisfy skeptics.

Forget Double Dip, the Next Bottom May be Deeper

Stocks continued their now four-day rally with the weakest volume of the week on Friday. Most of the buying - mostly positioning for earnings releases beginning next week - occured in the final two hours of the session.

Nonetheless, it was a stellar performance for the holiday-shortened span, with stocks rebounding sharply after two months of relentless selling.

Dow 10,198.03, +59.04 (0.58%)
NASDAQ 2,196.45, +21.05 (0.97%)
S&P 500 1,077.96, +7.71 (0.72%)
NYSE Composite 6,808.71, +52.90 (0.78%)

Advancers buried decliners, 4901-1497, and new lows were trampled by an onrush of new highs, 168-72. Volume was the lightest it has been in weeks, typical for summer trading, though potentially disconcerting to some trend-watchers who have noted many recent higher moves on inadequate volume. It's called speculation, and there's still plenty to go around.

NASDAQ Volume 1,601,902,625
NYSE Volume 3,999,371,000

Commodities were again positive for sellers, with oil up 65 cents, to $76.09, gold rocketing higher by $13.80, to $1,209.60 and silver tacking on 20 cents to the price of an ounce, at $18.05.

Following up on a recent post - June 1, US Markets the World's Laughing Stock; Second Great Depression Still Looming in which I compared current stock market conditions to those of the Great Depression, along come two esteemed commentators, Donald Luskin of Trend Macrolytics LLC, writing for the Wall Street Journal, and Daryl Guppy of GuppyTraders.com to solidify my position and rationale.

Luskin's article, Why This Isn't Like 1938—At Least Not Yet, carries my argument about the similarities a step further and somewhat in another direction, comparing today's stock market, and economy, to that of 1937-38, a recession within the Great Depression which exhibits an eerily-similar pattern to the recent S&P 500. Offering an over-imposed chart of the two periods, it's difficult to argue against his analysis, especially when he mentions:

In 1937 the economy was in a strong recovery from a severe crisis, and there was complacency that the worst was over—much like the exuberance about a "V-shaped' recovery this April. But after 1937 the economy relapsed into what historians call "the recession within the Depression," a downturn so severe that in any other context it would qualify as a depression itself.

It was triggered by a set of very specific policy mistakes. The Fed tightened by raising reserve requirements. Consumers were hit with new taxes to pay for the then-new Social Security program. Worried about excessive deficits, Roosevelt cut government spending. At the same time, his administration accelerated antibusiness rhetoric and regulation.

Those conditions sound quite a bit like what is directly ahead for the US economy, some of the same policies already set in motion.

Guppy's point is that there's a head-and-shoulders pattern developing that looks just like the one at the start of the Great Depression, the period to which I referred in my June 1 post. His analysis was released on July 5, when most of us were still enjoying the tail end of a three-day weekend, so it's unsurprising that many missed it.

Whether or not anyone agrees with history repeating itself, charting or comparisons, it certainly seems worth considering what might happen over the next 6 months to 6 years. Using reasonable market assumptions being a key tenet of any sound financial plan, might it not be time for people to begin using models which predict lower rates of return, possible deflation - instead of inflation - and benchmarks taken from actual conditions rather than the rosy assumptions (7-9% y-o-y gains, 3% inflation) usually thrown around by "respected" financial planners and analysts?

Which brings up yet another point of contention. Bull or Bear, optimist or pessimist, everyone has to have some kind of time horizon for investments, and, there being no better time than the present to plan for the future, one wonders just how long it might be before stocks return to the all-time highs of October, 2007.

I'll toss out a number here, just for argument's sake. With the Dow right around 10,000 today, I'll say that the index won't return to the 14,164 number (October 9, 2007) for maybe thirty years. How's that for perspective? Too gloomy? Bear in mind that it took more than 25 years years from stocks to recover from get back to the previous pre-crash high. The Dow Jones Industrials closed at 381.17 on September 3, 1929 and didn't rise back to that level until November 23, 1954, when they closed at 382.74. Surely, conditions were dire during the Great Depression and through world War II, but, considering the massive amount of debt overhang (still growing) and unfunded liabilities of around $130 Trillion (unfunded and unresolved), one might suggest that economic conditions are far worse, by degree, than they were some 80 years ago.

Just using a simple formula of 7% gains, compounded annually, it would take five years to retake the 14,164 level, and is anybody predicting five straight years of 7% returns? None that I know of, and if you know of any, do yourself a favor and seek out other opinions. With the ten-year treasury hovering around 3% and the 30-year around 4%, we all should be well aware that explosive growth is not in the near-term cards.

That's why I keep saying that cash is king, because if stocks and other assets decline in value, your cash will buy more down the road. That's what deflation is all about.

Summer Rally Lifts Stocks for Third Straight Session

Just a week ago, stocks appeared to have lost much of their appeal, as US economic data and problems in Europe prompted fears of a "double dip" (another recession) or slow growth for the United states and much of the developed world.

Apparently, not everybody got the memo, as this first week of the third quarter has traders snapping up stocks by the truckload. The major indices recorded their third straight day of gains, following seven sessions in negative territory. While concrete proof of better economic conditions have yet to be affirmed or even ascertained, traders have felt the need to dive headlong into stocks at a crucial juncture.

For chartists, one of many significant patterns developing right now is what's been termed the "death cross," wherein the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day moving average. The last time this particular pattern occurred was at the very end of 2007, when (using the Dow Jones Industrials as a guide) the Dow failed to surpass the October, 2007 high of 14,164. Through the end of December, 2007, the Dow was trading in the low to mid-13,000s, but by the end of January the index had fallen to the low 12,000s range. Even though by June, the index had made its way back to 13,000, the 50-day MA remained below the 200-day, there was not enough commitment in the market to reverse the trend, and the subsequent crash in Autumn of 2008 finally dashed all of the bullish camp's hopes.

What is notable about the "death cross" is that it is not an insignificant event. As the market is normally an efficient discounting mechanism, the crossover of the two major moving averages correctly forecasts deteriorating economic conditions, though sharp rallies, bringing the averages back above the 50-day, and sometimes touching the 200-day, normally end in failure.

The key area of resistance at this juncture is two-fold, and that dichotomy bodes ill for the bulls. The first level is at the 200-day moving average, roughly at 10,300. A break above that level would be a boost for optimism, though the second level, at 11,200 - the height of the most recent rally and also the level at which the market broke down severely in 2008 - is more important. Failure to exceed the previous high can mean only one thing: stocks are overvalued and moving lower.

This entire panacea will likely take place over a lengthy time span of six to eight months before it is finally resolved, though there seems to be little doubt - from a technical point of view - that the bears will eventually feast upon overpriced securities, likely by November and almost surely by january 2011.

Not to put too much of a pessimistic tone on the delightful little three-day rally, but it's well-known that the averages never move in straight lines, sentiment can turn on a dime and there's no discernible difference between economic conditions today and those which prevailed for the prior eight weeks. Housing, unemployment and financial fears - not confined to just europen banks, but to US banks and the entire global financial system - will continue to pressure those on the long side of trades.

Chartists usually get it right, and while there are surely no guarantees, recent economic data suggests at least a slowdown in GDP growth from the first and second quarters of this year to the third and fourth. While individual names may report stellar earnings, the underlying data is signaling a tough time to grow profits and revenues.

Despite the glowing headline numbers, today's trade was a disaster in a number of ways. First, the galloping gain of the morning were nearly completely vaporized by noontime, and, second, most of the day's gains (80 points on the Dow) were achieved in the final hour. There's a good deal of buying going on, but there's surely no dearth of selling, either. The rub is that institutions may very well have been unloading stocks midday, forcing another bout of short-covering at the tail end of the session. It was a very sloppy-looking chart.

Dow 10,138.99, +120.71 (1.20%)
NASDAQ 2,175.40, +15.93 (0.74%)
S&P 500 1,070.25, +9.98 (0.94%)
NYSE Composite 6,755.81, +70.03 (1.05%)

Advancers dominated declining issues, 4658-1738 (nearly 3:1), and new highs surpassed new lows, 145-84, breaking a streak of seven straight days of wins for new lows. Volume was below par.

NASDAQ Volume 1,958,669,750
NYSE Volume 5,208,361,000

Oil gained again, now eraing most of the declines from the prior two weeks, higher by $1.37, to $75.44. It's doubtful that oil can or will break out of this $70-80 range any time soon, unless there's a serious disruption in production or demand falls off a cliff - unlikely during the busy summer months.

Metals were little changed, with gold dipping $2.80, to $1,195.80, and silver losing 13 cents, down to $17.85.

The most relevant stat for the day came prior to the open, when initial unemployment claims were estimated at 454,000, down from the previous week's total of 475,000. A good many analysts saw this as a positive, though the reality of the situation must be viewed in a larger, longer context. Using a simple round figure of 450,000 initial claims a week, that would extrapolate to over 23 million claims in a year, or a turnover of roughly 30 percent of the total workforce.

With jobs scarce, that kind of turnover is simply not supportable from available data, insinuating that the weekly claims numbers are very faulty and probably disguising an even-worse employment condition than many believe exists. The government's own non-farm payroll actually put unemployment at 9.5% in June, down from 9.8% in May, even though the number of jobs created was a negative. Clearly, the response was that the workforce had shrunk, as many longer-term unemployed entered the ranks of "discouraged," and thus, not counted.

It's a complete fallacy to believe that employment is in anything but a disastrous state of affairs and that the official numbers are masking the truth. The real unemployment rate, or U-6, which captures underemployed workers and those completely discouraged and without benefits, at 16.6%, another government statistic probably undervalued by 5-10%.

Of course, the employment condition is only part of the story, but a large part, as it also impacts retail sales and housing in major ways. Anyone who believes we're out of the woods just because the stock market rallies for a few days might just ask a few of their unemployed neighbors how they feel about things.

... And Now, the Rally That Was... a Real Phony

Viewing the market over the past two trading sessions, a comparison to an olympic athlete might be apropos, say, that of a high-jumper, like Dwight Stones back in the day, sailing over the bar at 7'1", but then failing at the next height, and again, until finally getting his steps and takeoff and velocity all right on the third attempt, at which point he flies into Olympic history.

That's what the market appears to have done, after failing badly on Tuesday, finally getting the commitment and the volume and the lack of bad economic data points and the short sellers all lined up in the proper order to propel the Dow back over the 10,000 bar, taking the antecedent indices along for the joyful ride.

With the level of short interest in the marketplace, there's no doubt that the push higher in the final minutes of trading on Monday continued into Tuesday on the backs of the shorts, who, like it or not, have been having their way for the past two months running. Anybody getting squeezed here was either in too late or was already well in the money and made profits when they covered their bets. Worse yet, many of the same players who profited today on the upticks were the same people making hay on the way down. It's just the way Wall Street works these days, now that the buy and hold investment strategy (the one which our fathers and grandfathers used to make money slowly and honorably) have been relegated to the dustbin of market history in favor of "quant" trading and electronic push-button charting and graphing which the investment houses are now all shoving down our throats.

Sure, you can trade right from your iphone, computer or other electronic instrument, as though it's a race to see who squeeze the last few pennies on execution, but is that any way to treat your money? Not really, though the masters of the universe running the funds and brokerages are generally using OPM (other people's money), so who cares? And that's why today's rally pushed higher and higher. The money masters flicked the switch at the open in the US, abruptly turning around all of the European markets - which were suffering severe declines until late in their respective trading days - and sending US stocks soaring.

One can only be amused by the cheerleading nature of the financial press, despite mountains of data that not only suggest, but verify, that the "recovery" was something of a chimera, and that global markets are still fundamentally unsound. Reading a headline like, "European bank stress tests and U.S. retail sales lift the Dow" gives one reason to probe deeper, as we come to find out that the stress tests to be performed on European banks haven't actually been started, but that a few details about what they may entail were released. Also, we find out that the esteemed group known as the International Council of Shopping Centers reported same store sales in the ICSC-Goldman Sachs (hmm, those guys again) weekly index, which is "constructed using sales-weighted geometric average growth rates to preserve long-term consistency and is statistically benchmarked to a broad-based monthly retail industry sales aggregate" (in other words, it's bull-$^%#), was up 3.9% year-over-year, the best level since May.

Well, that being only two months ago, why did the market go straight down then? Also, one may recall that retail sakes a year ago were pretty dismal, so, being up nearly 4% is not even back to what anyone would consider "good," though it apparently works for the fraudsters and con men who populate the equity trading markets.

And, by the way, that ICSC-Goldman Sachs index excludes restaurants and vehicle sales, which, unless you have consumers who neither eat nor drive, seems to be an important element in tracking retail sales performance. They have plenty of other modifiers with which they can interpret the data seemingly any way they like, such as the "Piser Method, which was popular in the early 1930s." I guess they tried lying to people back in the Great Depression, too, and we all know how well that worked out.

One should not overlook - though everybody trading stocks apparently did today - that vacancies at large malls in the top 80 U.S. markets rose to 9 percent in the second quarter and open-air center is now at 10.9%, that data coming from the same web site as the cheery same-store sales index.

So, the market cleared the bar of 10,000, but only until maybe tomorrow, when initial unemployment claims for the most recent week are released. Maybe the government can fudge those numbers a bit, as they've been downright depressing lately. Of course, this rally could go on for another few weeks, especially since earnings begin flowing to the street in short order, and, of course, options expire on Friday of next week. Getting the picture yet?

The real kicker to the whole "rally" story is what happened to Family Dollar (FDO) after it released its earning report. Quarterly profit jumped 19%, but earnings guidance disappointed as the CEO said consumers remained wary. No surprise there, but the stock lost 8% on the day, down 3.18 to 36.26. And you thought retailers were doing well.

Dow 10,018.28, +274.66 (2.82%)
NASDAQ 2,159.47, +65.59 (3.13%)
S&P 500 1,060.27, +32.21 (3.13%)
NYSE Composite 6,685.78, +199.66 (3.08%)

Internals told a mixed story. Advancers eviscerated decliners, 5351-1212, but new lows led new highs, 205-121. Volume was at average levels for the second straight session, another indication that this was more a relief rally or a knee-jerk reaction to oversold conditions, or a combination with short-covering mixed in for good measure.

NASDAQ Volume 2,190,606,000
NYSE Volume 5,861,473,500

Crude oil for August delivery rose $2.06, after falling for six consecutive sessions, to $74.07. Gold snapped back to life, gaining $3.80, to $1,198.60, with silver adding 15 cents, to close at $17.98.

Considering that financial and energy stocks (including, notoriously, BP) - the two most beaten down groups over the past few weeks were the rally leaders, one shouldn't put too much trust in this one-day wonder rally, as it appears to be contain more bark than bite, more reflection than reality, and no fundamentally good reason to have happened at all except for a one-day dearth of economic reporting.