Stocks Take a Little Ride; Fraudclosure-gate Shuffled to Back Burner

With mid-term elections now less than a week away, politicians are in no mood to deal with serious issues (are they ever?) like the ongoing fraud in bank foreclosures that began to unravel three weeks ago and has continued to gather momentum.

That issue has been shelved for the time being by politicians and the bankers at the heart of the scandal. In fact, Bank of America was one of the top-performing stocks of the day, on a day in which the major indices took a serious turn to the downside only to be salvaged by furious buying into the close.

Silly me. I thought for a moment that the markets weren't rigged and losses could occur. Apparently, and almost assuredly, this is not the case. Nobody wants to talk about mortgage put-backs and fraudulent foreclosures. That's so... last weekend. We all need to pay attention to the events of next week - the elections and the FOMC meeting, and of course, how could I forget, Halloween is Sunday.

That's the level to which the markets and politics have sank. Bad news is simply not acceptable over any extended period. Breaking the law will be tolerated, as evidenced by the disappearance of our US Attorney General, Eric Holder, who has chosen the path of least resistance: prosecutions for nobody, no matter what, and especially if you're rich, well-connected or a complete snobbish troll.

As for stocks, they hit their lows of the day just after 1:00 pm ET, but then began a miraculous comeback on no news - as usual - to shave a nearly 150 point loss on the Dow down to just over 40 by the close. Nice job, fellas. We're sure there's a special place in hell for the cheating rats who now completely control Wall Street and their HFT computers, though most of us out here in teaming-masses-land would prefer to see you get your just desserts here on earth, as in a nice long prison sentence in a federal penitentiary and clawbacks and restitution of the billions you've strangled away from the US public.

But I digress. These titans of financial ingenuity, the Blankfeins, Dimons and Pandits of the world, they've brought us such wonders as 17% real unemployment, $3.00 per gallon gas and a complete rejection - at the federal level - of the constitution and the rule of law. We should thank them as they are whisked away in their limousines, for they have done the nation a great service: they robbed it blind.

Oops, there I go again; trying really hard to be objective, though it's difficult in the face of such overt criminality. Thankfully, I am not alone in my outrge. At least there is William K. Black, who sent thousands of dirty bankers to jail in the S&L scandal. He thinks Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner should be fired, many bankers indicted and the twelve largest financial institutions put under federal receivership.

Is anybody listening?

Dow 11,126.28, -43.18 (0.39%)
NASDAQ 2,503.26, +5.97 (0.24%)
S&P 500 1,182.45, -3.19 (0.27%)
NYSE Composite 7,480.87, -49.93 (0.66%)

Losers dominated winners, 4180-2216, a nearly 2-1 margin. New highs came in at 294, to just 54 new lows. Volume was a bit stronger than previous days this week and last, though it was still not at levels normal in the mid-00s, prior to the financial meltdown of 2008.

NASDAQ Volume 2,027,671,625
NYSE Volume 4,904,105,500

Commodities trended lower on the day, with oil losing 61 cents, to $81.94. Gold fell $16.00, to $1,322.60, while silver shed 43 cents, to close at $23.40 the ounce.

Shocking! Fed Does $2.5B POMO; Stocks Gain Fractions

Not only is this the dullest market in generations, it is also the phoniest ever.

To illustrated just how desperate the big money traders (the only traders remaining) are for the largesse of the Federal Reserve, without whose risk-free money the stock markets would have closed down roughly two years ago, a recap of the day's trading is in order.

In the final half hour of trading yesterday, the Dow fell about 55 points. At the open today, the same index lopped off another 65 points in the opening minutes of trading. That's when Ben Bernanke primed up the printing press and bought back $2.5 billion of Treasuries from the corrupt, greedy, insolvent banks that have ruined the US economy.

Immediately, the Dow was back to the unchanged mark for the day, wiping out the early losses. The rest of the session was spent with the computers trading pennies in a tight range of 50 Dow points. To say that the markets are drifting aimlessly would be to miss the point that the Fed is force-feeding liquidity into the system. Truly, without the Federal Reserve priming the pump, stocks would be as dead as doornails, which, to some degree, is already the case.

Of course, there are those among us who still believe that the stock market is fair and unbiased, that there's no manipulation and that the small investor can still do well. These people apparently believe that unicorns can fly and the Easter Bunny brings candy to kids.

One adage of the market is that there's no free lunch, though that probably doesn't include banksters and insiders. For the rest of us, a look at price-earnings ratios might be instructive.

In a normal market, a reasonable P/E would be around 12-15. In raging bull markets, a touch above that, but in bear markets single digits are the norm, and there's no doubt that we're still in a bear market despite the convoluted efforts of the market riggers to make us believe otherwise.

I looked at some of the more popular names that routinely are recommended by pundits, analysts and brokers. Here's what I found to be their price-earnings ratios, using trailing earnings (prior four quarters). Caterpillar (CAT), 25.53; IBM (IBM), 12.72; AT&T (T), 12.52; McDonald's (MCD), 17.58; Apple (AAPL), 19.87; Intel (INTC), Chevron (CVX), 10.24; Bank of America (BAC), 51.36.

There's just a small cross-section of US stocks, which, from the looks of it, seem to be at least fully valued, though one has to ask why Bank of America is carrying a P/E three to four times it's historic norm. Does anyone think it's a good buy at this price, that they'll begin earning $4 and $5 per annum any time soon? Pretty doubtful. There's a lot of money that's headed for a rat hole in BAC.

Dow 11,169.46, +5.41 (0.05%)
NASDAQ 2,497.29, +6.44 (0.26%)
S&P 500 1,185.64, +0.02 (0.00%)
NYSE Composite 7,530.80, -15.58 (0.21%)

Declining issues beat advancers, 3453-2978. New Highs: 376; New Lows: 48. Volume was putrid.

NASDAQ Volume 1,935,497,500
NYSE Volume 4,679,565,500

Commodities, other than silver, didn't move very much. Oil gained 3 cents, to $82.55. Gold fell 30 cents, to 1,338.60. Silver, on serious allegations of price manipulation by short-sellers (banks, mostly JP Morgan), gained 29 cents, to $23.83.

When the News IS the News and Maybe Not the News

We used to have a saying in the newspaper business: "We don't make the news, we just deliver it."

That sentiment has been wasted on the Wall Street crowd. They are the news, even when there is no news, like today, when I find nothing of significance to report except that stocks went up.

It's old news, but becoming more the norm. Stocks go up. Every day. That's it.

But maybe there's more. Stocks gapped up at the open but stopped abruptly at 10:00 am, and that turned out to be the high of the day. I personally cannot remember a day in which the highwas reached at 10:00 am and not taken out later in the session, but that's what happened today.

After 10:00 am, the rest of the day was dithering, until the final half hour, when the HFTs all lined up and sold into the close. From a chartist's perspective, that close, in the context of the day's high at 10:00 am, is an ominous sign, something that I haven't been able to pronunce with conviction for quite some time.

Indeed, while many of us occupying the blogosphere see dark clouds on the horizon, they've been sitting out there for quite some time, but the markets continue to grind higher. It may be nothing, but with the mid-terms just a week away, fireworks could be ignited prior to the scheduled time.

The canaries in the coal mines are beginning to look more like a flock, each wondering which will fall over first. Unemployment is still at historic highs and growing. The housing market is completely stalled out due to foreclosure-gate, various investigations and new rules, and the added threat of put-backs by investors. Europe is fast becoming a war zone with France almost entirely shut down and Greece resuming protests which shut down the rails on Monday.

Add to these "canaries" the threat of market meltdown due to "flash crash" or other event and you have what sets up as a perfect storm. If one of the conditions is exacerbated to the point of explosion, the others will ignite in simultaneous conflagration.

In the meantime, we have banks committing mortgage and foreclosure fraud on a grand scale and markets that are just about non-functional other than the computers running the show. CNBC keeps reporting on companies meeting or beating expectations, so one has to wonder whether the inevitable crash will occur before or after the elections. I'm still sticking to "before" because there's been no October surprise as of yet, and the media is just waiting on it.

Dow 11,164.05, +31.49 (0.28%)
NASDAQ 2,490.85, +11.46 (0.46%)
S&P 500 1,185.62, +2.54 (0.21%)
NYSE Composite 7,546.38, +23.47 (0.31%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,764,460,625
NYSE Volume 4,795,549,500

Advancers finished ahead of declining issues, 4042-2423 (these numbers seem wrong, like 700 stocks were all of a sudden added to the NYSE - might be new ETFs?). New highs bettered new lows, 694-78. Volume was at it's usual dull level.

Commodities were on the move again. Oil gained 83 cents, to $82.52; gold picked up $13.80, to $1,338.90; silver added 43 cents, to $23.54.

It may all be meaningless, as there's no direction to anything except up, and we all know the outcome of things that go the way for long.

Welcome to the Depression in No-Fun, Distracted America

Is there any wonder why Americans find ways to distract themselves from the real world? The diversions provided by major league baseball, the NFL and other sports, shows like Glee or American Idol at least provide an escape from the drudgery that has become life in America: working to just pay bills that never cease, never go down, never go away. After the utilities, cable, phone, car insurance and other debt payments, gas and food most Americans are left with little to spend, much less save anything for a "brighter" future.

The oligarchy that we have morphed into over the past 40 years is decimating the middle class, having already created a huge and growing underclass that pays no bills, relying on food stamps and subsidized housing for basic sustenance. The rich could care less; they're just busy getting richer or trying to hold onto what they have before it's all inflated away by the Fed and the Treasury and our spendthrift congress.

We overburdened with rules and regulations that haunt us at every turn. Entrepreneurs are reluctant - no, afraid - to expand and hire anyone due to the crush of regulations, taxes, paperwork and red tape, making the thought of training and retaining employees almost unthinkable.

It would be nice to say that people want distractions because the news is always so bad, but that's not even true any more. The mainstream media doesn't even report the news properly, shielding the guilty (government, banks, politicians) from the public, left in the dark to fend for themselves when the next shock comes.

France is nearly in a state of anarchy, as is much of europe, though you'll find none of it on the major PUBLIC AIRWAVE networks. NBC even went so far as to call the potential $257 billion, or whatever stupid number they assigned to it, that will be needed to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest bailout in history, then went through a brief history, including the auto manufacturers, an some others they came up with, and then put had the temerity to show the cost of bailing out the banks at something like $17 billion.

It's outrageous that they can still call themselves a news organization. Somewhere along the line the $700 billion the banks stole from the American taxpayers has become a mere $17 billion. Supposedly, they'll argue that the banks paid most of it back. All they're doing is conditioning the public for the next bank bailout, on the order of $500 billion to $1 trillion, scheduled for late Winter or early Spring.

Even the stock market is a fool's paradise. Stocks just keep going up, no matter what. For instance, today, Fitch warned of downgrading the debt of Bank of America and Citigroup. Shares of both insolvent banks were higher at the end of the day.

Speaking of said stock market, the NASDAQ was higher all day, the Dow lower, and the S&P and NYSE hugged the flat line. The markets are broken, devoid of the individual investor that used to be the backbone of the trade. Today, 80% of the trades are computer driven and come from the top twenty or so brokerages or hedge funds.

It's simply no fun to be an American any more. Some days, people wish the system would just collapse, so we could start over again from scratch, because this one is just worn out or has become so corrupted, that it doesn't play right. Those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s remember better times. One working parent, stay-at-home mom, mostly honest politicians, straight-forward banks, low costs for gas, food and other necessities and enough money for summer family vacations and even some left over for savings.

Forget those idyllic days, for they are long gone. What we have today instead is nothing short of catastrophic, and what we'll leave for the future will be an unmitigated wasteland.

Dow 11,132.56, -14.01 (0.13%)
NASDAQ 2,479.39, +19.72 (0.80%)
S&P 500 1,183.08, +2.82 (0.24%)
NYSE Composite 7,522.91, +7.24 (0.10%)

Despite the bifurcated headline numbers, advancers defeated decliners, 3940-2434. New highs soared past new lows, 340-46. Never mind that it was the lowest volume day in six weeks.

NASDAQ Volume 1,660,682,375
NYSE Volume 3,536,505,250

As one might have guessed, oil was up, by $1.13, to $81.69. Gold was lower by 50 cents, to $1,325.10, and silver shed two pennies, to $23.29.

We're all aware that America isn't what it used to be, but it would be nice if some of it could be saved. By kicking the can further down the road, the congress and big business are assuring us that it will never, ever again resemble anything like it was when it was good.

An Up and Down Thursday with Lady Gaga and the Fed

Now that the US stock markets are inexorably intertwined with Fed POMOs and repurchases, and, in turn, to movements in the US dollar, investors are more likely to see moves such as today's rather than stocks moving on fundamentals, news, or economic data.

In the absence of a POMO today, the whizzing HFT computers got the markets off to a bang-up start, only to be headed off by the Federal Reserve's #1.5 billion reverse repo, which actually takes liquidity out of the market. Thus, with less free money on hand, stocks slumped midday, though managed to stage a final hour rally to close positive, again. The major indices registered marginal gains, except for the NYSE Composite, the broadest measure.

Stocks simply cannot go down. That much is clear. How high the HFT computers and the Fed, via their Primary Dealers (PMs) will take it is the big unknown. Eventually, while Americans move from 99 weeks of unemployment benefits into the underworld of welfare recipients and food stamps, the stock market - permanently unhinged from reality and the US economy - may challenge the all-time highs. We expect REAL unemployment to be registering at about 25% (it's already 22% and rising), though the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will have it pegged at something around 9.7%, as they discard discouraged workers and anybody who was on a payroll for more than one hour in a given week.

In that regard, the weekly new unemployment claims were "down" to 452,000 this week, from last week's 475,000, which was revised from the reported 462,000. Not to worry, this week's figures will be revised upward next week, so they can show "improvement" again. The BLS has upwardly revised the number every week save one for the past six months. No, really, it's true!

US investors and their computers which run them also overlooked the extreme austerity measures undertaken by the British parliament and the ongoing strikes in France which have pretty much shut the country down.

Conditions in France are so bad that Lady Gaga cancelled all her upcoming appearances. Now, that's shocking and maybe will awaken the MTV generation that all is not well with the world.

Not making headlines today, but surely taking the heat from traders, was Bank of America (BAC), which hit another 52-week low, closing down 39 cents at 11.36. The widely =-circulating rumor is that BofA is being used as a fall guy for much of the toxic mortgage paper that investors wish to shed and be compensated for. Bank of America, with headquarters in Charlotte, NC, is not part of the Wall Street cartel, thus, it may be under preparation to be jettisoned from the land of publicly-traded companies.

For many mortgage and bank account holders, this could not happen to a better (worse) bank.

Dow 11,146.57, +38.60 (0.35%)
NASDAQ 2,459.67, +2.28 (0.09%)
S&P 500 1,180.26, +2.09 (0.18%)
NYSE Composite 7,515.67, -8.14 (0.11%)

despite the valiant efforts in the final hour, declining issues beat advancers, 3591-2799. New highs beat new lows, 522-74. Volume remained mostly moribund.

NASDAQ Volume 2,145,050,000
NYSE Volume 5,269,549,000

Commodities got smacked down again, with oil losing $1.98, to $80.56 on the first day of the December contract, a particularly bearish sentiment being expressed. Gold dropped another $18.60, to $1,325.60, while silver fell 73 cents, to $23.14, a tempting price, though one's enthusiasm for the precious metals must be tempered at this point. Commodities may be reacting more to the conditions in France, the rest of Europe and in England, as a global depression may be taking fuller shape and would negatively impact all asset classes, and primarily, commodities, as demand would be severely crimped for all production on every level.

Considering the damage done in the main by the corrupt, illicit actions of US financial institutions over the past two decades, global depression 2.0 seems the most likely outcome, something predicted here at least two years ago. Check our archives from 2006 and 2007 if you need any proof.

The banksters who roam Wall Street as free men (and maybe a few rogue women) have delivered to the world the ultimate crap sandwich, complete with a rotten apple in a fetid, torn paper bag. With US politicians more intent on re-election than actually handling problems, nothing gets done and nothing will, if the media pundits have their way.

Predicting a Republican "Tea Party" triumph, taking control of the House and maybe the Senate, the most likely outcome - with a Democrat in the White House - would be gridlock, with an assortment of charges, counter-charges, investigations and accusations being thrown by both parties at each other. This may be the most desirous of conditions for the American public, who might, after a while, simply give up on government policy and demand the wholesale dissolution of the federal government.

In the event of widespread public rage, after the rioting, ranting and raving, the states may then be able to stand up individually and reject federal controls which have destroyed the union. There will be periods of fear and bloodshed, but, in the end, removing the shackles of government may be the best and possibly, only solution.

One would hope that it would not come to such extremes, but the vast pantheon of history is replete with uprisings, revolts and revolutions. It's all part of what keeps the world spinning and a necessary needed cure to tyranny and control.