As it turns out, the mystery of Thursday's sudden ramp up in volume and price action wasn't such a mystery at all. A quick look at the calendar confirms that today was the third Friday of the month, the day of stock options expiration.
Mystery solved.
Rather than bore readers with an explanation of how stocks played Friday in the usual "dead summer" manner, we leave with a few ripened Beatles tunes.
Enjoy the weekend!
For anybody in particular:
Dow 13,275.20, +25.09 (0.19%)
NASDAQ 3,076.59, +14.20 (0.46%)
S&P 500 1,418.16, +2.65 (0.19%)
NYSE Composite 8,102.07, +12.07 (0.15%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,644,206,500
NYSE Volume 2,910,906,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3463-2003
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 283-38
WTI crude oil: 96.01, +0.41
Gold: 1,619.40, +0.20
Silver: 28.00, -0.21
Friday, August 17, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Speculators Step Up to End Dull Trade with a Bang
Think zero interest rate policy and money for virtually free doesn't have its upside?
Ask fund and managed account managers what they think of this trading environment and they'll likely respond in unanimity that it's never been better. After eight straight days of lackluster, low-volume trading, the wheeler-dealers went to work in concerted fashion, driving all risk assets higher on Thursday.
When the biggest banks and their trading arms can borrow money at 25 basis points or less overnight, what happens is trading like today, shutting off the noise about a sputtering, topped out market with a quick, one-day ramp up on strong volume for a nice turn of profit for the week.
The particular catalyst could be anything, from Angela Merkel's comments today about floating more bailout money to save the Euro, to benign initial claims figures (op a mere 2,000 from the prior week, to 366,000), to July housing starts dropping to 746,000 annualized from 754,000 or the Philadephia Fed's manufacturing index gaining to -7.1 in August from July's horrific -12.1. Well, forget those last two as they don't quite fit the hopium narrative.
Indeed, if conditions on Wall Street get any better, the feds may just cancel the November election and proclaim President Obama the winner by default. After all, the campaign money flows from Wall Street and other major investors, multi-millionaires and billionaires to the candidates or their PACs, and Wall Street has been having a rousing good time the past three-and-a-half years. Why end the party now?
At some point, analysts are going to poke around the numbers a bit and find that stocks are extremely overvalued, priced for perfection, at levels unsustainable for the long run unless corporations severely fudge their books to show better-than-expected results (oh, that's never been done before, not in America).
It doesn't matter what analysts or the best chartists in the business conclude, however. Stocks will continue to go up as long as markets continue to be manipulated by the central planners scattered around the globe in investment houses, central banks and government ivory towers.
What's that? You don't believe the US markets are not manipulated? Maybe you need a little convincing from experts in the field.
Take J.S. Kim, for example, who posits that potential gold and silver investors are continually fed disinformation about a market manipulated by contrived futures and trading patterns in a false, paper market
Perhaps one could take advice from Chris Martenson's commentary, headlined "What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated?"
For a more general understanding, one could comb through the 29,800,000 results for the search term "market manipulation," and see what kind of gems are unearthed.
The control, rigging or manipulation of markets in the United States has been going on in a large manner ever since Ronald Reagan created, by executive order, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (otherwise known as the PPT, or Plunge Protection Team) after the massive market crash in the wake of "Black Monday," when the Dow Jones Industrials plummeted 508 points Oct. 19, 1987 and was called into action again when Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) nearly brought down the house of cards in 1998.
After 9/11/2001, the PPT, as it became known, has been on keen alert to any signs of a meltdown in markets, but not even the heft and might of the underhanded, underground operatives of the government could deflect the market forces pushing against them in the fall of 2008.
Since then, the manipulation in equity markets has become almost overt, with the Fed guiding the way by the light of quantitative easing (QE) and ZIRP.
While here at Money Daily we deride the pimping and pumping of markets by insider forces, there comes a time when one must admit that investing in risk assets such as stocks and commodities over the past three years has never been easier. All one needs to do is hold a basket of stocks or index contracts long enough and they're sure to rise. It's become a permanent feature of US markets that they cannot fall for long and there is no end in sight to the manipulation.
It's just that easy for the rich to get richer and the rest of us to remain in a stupefied trance-like state of amazement and contentment.
Dow 13,250.11, +85.33 (0.65%)
NASDAQ 3,062.39, +31.46 (1.04%)
S&P 500 1,415.51, +9.98 (0.71%)
NYSE Composite 8,089.82, +60.81 (0.76%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,901,789,500
NYSE Volume 2,898,041,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3862-1572
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 230-30
WTI crude oil: 95.60, +1.27
Gold: 1,619.20, +12.60
Silver: 28.21, +0.40
Ask fund and managed account managers what they think of this trading environment and they'll likely respond in unanimity that it's never been better. After eight straight days of lackluster, low-volume trading, the wheeler-dealers went to work in concerted fashion, driving all risk assets higher on Thursday.
When the biggest banks and their trading arms can borrow money at 25 basis points or less overnight, what happens is trading like today, shutting off the noise about a sputtering, topped out market with a quick, one-day ramp up on strong volume for a nice turn of profit for the week.
The particular catalyst could be anything, from Angela Merkel's comments today about floating more bailout money to save the Euro, to benign initial claims figures (op a mere 2,000 from the prior week, to 366,000), to July housing starts dropping to 746,000 annualized from 754,000 or the Philadephia Fed's manufacturing index gaining to -7.1 in August from July's horrific -12.1. Well, forget those last two as they don't quite fit the hopium narrative.
Indeed, if conditions on Wall Street get any better, the feds may just cancel the November election and proclaim President Obama the winner by default. After all, the campaign money flows from Wall Street and other major investors, multi-millionaires and billionaires to the candidates or their PACs, and Wall Street has been having a rousing good time the past three-and-a-half years. Why end the party now?
At some point, analysts are going to poke around the numbers a bit and find that stocks are extremely overvalued, priced for perfection, at levels unsustainable for the long run unless corporations severely fudge their books to show better-than-expected results (oh, that's never been done before, not in America).
It doesn't matter what analysts or the best chartists in the business conclude, however. Stocks will continue to go up as long as markets continue to be manipulated by the central planners scattered around the globe in investment houses, central banks and government ivory towers.
What's that? You don't believe the US markets are not manipulated? Maybe you need a little convincing from experts in the field.
Take J.S. Kim, for example, who posits that potential gold and silver investors are continually fed disinformation about a market manipulated by contrived futures and trading patterns in a false, paper market
Perhaps one could take advice from Chris Martenson's commentary, headlined "What to Do When Every Market Is Manipulated?"
For a more general understanding, one could comb through the 29,800,000 results for the search term "market manipulation," and see what kind of gems are unearthed.
The control, rigging or manipulation of markets in the United States has been going on in a large manner ever since Ronald Reagan created, by executive order, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (otherwise known as the PPT, or Plunge Protection Team) after the massive market crash in the wake of "Black Monday," when the Dow Jones Industrials plummeted 508 points Oct. 19, 1987 and was called into action again when Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) nearly brought down the house of cards in 1998.
After 9/11/2001, the PPT, as it became known, has been on keen alert to any signs of a meltdown in markets, but not even the heft and might of the underhanded, underground operatives of the government could deflect the market forces pushing against them in the fall of 2008.
Since then, the manipulation in equity markets has become almost overt, with the Fed guiding the way by the light of quantitative easing (QE) and ZIRP.
While here at Money Daily we deride the pimping and pumping of markets by insider forces, there comes a time when one must admit that investing in risk assets such as stocks and commodities over the past three years has never been easier. All one needs to do is hold a basket of stocks or index contracts long enough and they're sure to rise. It's become a permanent feature of US markets that they cannot fall for long and there is no end in sight to the manipulation.
It's just that easy for the rich to get richer and the rest of us to remain in a stupefied trance-like state of amazement and contentment.
Dow 13,250.11, +85.33 (0.65%)
NASDAQ 3,062.39, +31.46 (1.04%)
S&P 500 1,415.51, +9.98 (0.71%)
NYSE Composite 8,089.82, +60.81 (0.76%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,901,789,500
NYSE Volume 2,898,041,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3862-1572
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 230-30
WTI crude oil: 95.60, +1.27
Gold: 1,619.20, +12.60
Silver: 28.21, +0.40
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Wall Street's Summer Doldrums Extend Into 8th Day
For nearly two weeks running, trading ranges on the major indices have been slim and volume exceptionally light, as Wall Street sees no reason to rush either in or out of positions late in the summer.
This kind of trading regime is of no particular value to anybody, even to insiders who depend on at least some shred of volatility to move stocks in one direction or the other.
There's no catalyst for stocks at the present time, a condition which could persist until the elections in November or whenever the Europeans decide to actually do something about their ongoing crisis.
On the other hand, this just could be the "new normal" for US markets, since the triumvirate of high frequency trading (HFT), insider trading and the utter lack of individual investors to trust in the markets, has rendered just about all investment decisions a moot point.
Zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) by the Fed and general fraud on the part of the nation's biggest banks - in collusion with the federal government - have many otherwise investor types on the sidelines in cash or other hard assets like gold, silver or real estate.
About the only thing showing any movement are commodities, and they're moving in a very dangerous direction, with corn prices escalating and oil jumping back up into nose-bleed territory. In a macro sense, high food and energy prices will derail any kind of recovery, even the one we haven't had for the past three years.
Stocks, however, continue to levitate at unreasonable levels, another reason why there isn't much in the way of buying activity, but the conundrum is why there hasn't been more selling, either for profit-taking (and there's been plenty of profit of late) or out of a sense that the bottom is going to fall out of the global economy any day now.
In either case, one would expect some kind of movement, and most likely not to the upside. Corporate profits in the second quarter were barely as good as lowered estimates, small business continues to struggle along, housing is not fixed and unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Perhaps the lesson to be taken from this summer respite is that one can only kick a can so far down a given road until either the road ends or somebody picks up the can for a nickel deposit return.
Something will change to get Wall Street out of its rut, but timing such an event could prove costly and dangerous.
Dow 13,164.78, -7.36 (0.06%)
NASDAQ 3,030.93, +13.95 (0.46%)
S&P 500 1,405.53, +1.60 (0.11%)
NYSE Composite 8,030.08, +10.55 (0.13%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,498,334.250
NYSE Volume 2,527,355.50
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3628-1915
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 152-57
WTI crude oil: 94.33, +0.90
Gold: 1,606.60, +4.20
Silver: 27.81, +0.05
This kind of trading regime is of no particular value to anybody, even to insiders who depend on at least some shred of volatility to move stocks in one direction or the other.
There's no catalyst for stocks at the present time, a condition which could persist until the elections in November or whenever the Europeans decide to actually do something about their ongoing crisis.
On the other hand, this just could be the "new normal" for US markets, since the triumvirate of high frequency trading (HFT), insider trading and the utter lack of individual investors to trust in the markets, has rendered just about all investment decisions a moot point.
Zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) by the Fed and general fraud on the part of the nation's biggest banks - in collusion with the federal government - have many otherwise investor types on the sidelines in cash or other hard assets like gold, silver or real estate.
About the only thing showing any movement are commodities, and they're moving in a very dangerous direction, with corn prices escalating and oil jumping back up into nose-bleed territory. In a macro sense, high food and energy prices will derail any kind of recovery, even the one we haven't had for the past three years.
Stocks, however, continue to levitate at unreasonable levels, another reason why there isn't much in the way of buying activity, but the conundrum is why there hasn't been more selling, either for profit-taking (and there's been plenty of profit of late) or out of a sense that the bottom is going to fall out of the global economy any day now.
In either case, one would expect some kind of movement, and most likely not to the upside. Corporate profits in the second quarter were barely as good as lowered estimates, small business continues to struggle along, housing is not fixed and unemployment remains stubbornly high.
Perhaps the lesson to be taken from this summer respite is that one can only kick a can so far down a given road until either the road ends or somebody picks up the can for a nickel deposit return.
Something will change to get Wall Street out of its rut, but timing such an event could prove costly and dangerous.
Dow 13,164.78, -7.36 (0.06%)
NASDAQ 3,030.93, +13.95 (0.46%)
S&P 500 1,405.53, +1.60 (0.11%)
NYSE Composite 8,030.08, +10.55 (0.13%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,498,334.250
NYSE Volume 2,527,355.50
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3628-1915
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 152-57
WTI crude oil: 94.33, +0.90
Gold: 1,606.60, +4.20
Silver: 27.81, +0.05
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Wall Street Remains a Dead Zone; Habits of the Rich
It was another day of lackluster trading on US exchanges, with stocks spending most of the session in positive territory before sliding in the afternoon back to near opening levels.
This is the seventh straight session in which stocks have more or less meandered across and along the unchanged mark on ridiculously low volume, with no catalyst for change on the horizon.
Even economic data was dull or given the short shrift, as retail sales for July posted their best showing since February, a gain of 0.8%, though that was counterbalanced by a revision of June's figures from -0.5 to -0.7.
PPI showed some nascent signs of inflation, gaining 0.3% for July, with the core coming in at a somewhat surprising 0.4%, sparking fears that inflation has emerged from the core of food and energy, though the numbers lack any definitive pattern.
That was about it, as the masters of the universe were more likely pondering the upcoming presidential election or the bottom of a cocktail glass out at the Hamptons.
Since Wall Street seems preoccupied or disinterested in the capital markets for the time being, let's take a look at the habits of the rich, courtesy of author Tom Corley's recent work, Rich Habits, from whence came the following quiz:
The author posits that if you perform six or more of the above on a regular basis, you have the kernel of success flowing through your veins.
Of course, the quiz is somewhat simplistic, though it maintains that an ordered life, with goals and aspirations, plus dollops of common sense, may eventually lead to a life of leisure and contentment.
Other virtues that may lead one to find happiness and success include perseverance, decisiveness, objectivity, passion, organization and a positive direction. Starting off a professional career with a fat salary and some quality guidance certainly helps, though those final accoutrements are not always afforded to the vast majority.
Dow 13,172.14, +2.71 (0.02%)
NASDAQ 3,016.98, -5.54 (0.18%)
S&P 500 1,403.93, -0.18 (0.01%)
NYSE Composite 8,019.53, +0.90 (0.01%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,569,593,500
NYSE Volume 2,918,056,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2453-3094
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 178-53
WTI crude oil: 93.43, +0.70
Gold: 1,602.40, -10.20
Silver: 27.76, UNCH
This is the seventh straight session in which stocks have more or less meandered across and along the unchanged mark on ridiculously low volume, with no catalyst for change on the horizon.
Even economic data was dull or given the short shrift, as retail sales for July posted their best showing since February, a gain of 0.8%, though that was counterbalanced by a revision of June's figures from -0.5 to -0.7.
PPI showed some nascent signs of inflation, gaining 0.3% for July, with the core coming in at a somewhat surprising 0.4%, sparking fears that inflation has emerged from the core of food and energy, though the numbers lack any definitive pattern.
That was about it, as the masters of the universe were more likely pondering the upcoming presidential election or the bottom of a cocktail glass out at the Hamptons.
Since Wall Street seems preoccupied or disinterested in the capital markets for the time being, let's take a look at the habits of the rich, courtesy of author Tom Corley's recent work, Rich Habits, from whence came the following quiz:
1 Do you read at least one career-related educational book a month?
2 Do you engage in aerobic exercise of 20-40 minutes a day for at least 4 days a
week?
3 Do you eat 300 calories of less in junk food per day?
4 Do you set monthly, annual and long-term goals?
5 Do you spend 20-30 minutes each work day reading career-related magazines,
trade publications, newsletters etc.?
6 Do you limit T.V. and Social Media to one hour per day?
7 Do you regularly save 10% or more of your gross income?
8 Do you call everyone you know to wish them a happy birthday? This includes
family, friends and business contacts.
9 Do you create daily "To Do" lists and complete at least 70% or more of your
daily tasks?
10 Do you call or send thank you cards to everyone who has done something that
helped you in your career or life?
The author posits that if you perform six or more of the above on a regular basis, you have the kernel of success flowing through your veins.
Of course, the quiz is somewhat simplistic, though it maintains that an ordered life, with goals and aspirations, plus dollops of common sense, may eventually lead to a life of leisure and contentment.
Other virtues that may lead one to find happiness and success include perseverance, decisiveness, objectivity, passion, organization and a positive direction. Starting off a professional career with a fat salary and some quality guidance certainly helps, though those final accoutrements are not always afforded to the vast majority.
Dow 13,172.14, +2.71 (0.02%)
NASDAQ 3,016.98, -5.54 (0.18%)
S&P 500 1,403.93, -0.18 (0.01%)
NYSE Composite 8,019.53, +0.90 (0.01%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,569,593,500
NYSE Volume 2,918,056,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2453-3094
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 178-53
WTI crude oil: 93.43, +0.70
Gold: 1,602.40, -10.20
Silver: 27.76, UNCH
Monday, August 13, 2012
Dead Market Syndrome Continues; Consent by the Governed Should be Withdrawn
It's almost impossible to write any compelling commentary on the market as long as the PPT continues to meddle and volumes remain so horrifyingly low.
There is a serious problem developing if the world's most active market - the US stock exchanges - continue the daily pattern of losses in the morning followed by sharp reversal and firming up throughout the remainder of the session.
Combined trading volumes for the NYSE and NASDAQ today reached the nadir for the year and could possibly represent the lowest trading volume since the 2008 crash.
This is worse than a liquidity issue; it is a confidence issue. Individual investors have fled the marketplace, seeking safer havens in raw land, gold, silver and other hard assets.
Small, passive investors, such as those stuck in pension plans, IRAs or 401k plans, have no options other than to cash out and take the penalty, but the PPT has made that approach seem ludicrous by pumping up equities on a regular basis.
Were stocks free to trade without government intervention, the p/e multiples would be in the range of eight to ten, sending indices plummeting, reflecting the true weakness in the markets, but that's not going to happen until sometime close to the election, which is now a mere 13 weeks away.
The candidates are posturing and the rhetoric will get louder and more divisive as the conventions approach, though it's all for show, meaning nothing, as compaign promises are routinely broken. Whichever candidates are chosen (or appropriated by the black boxes that purportedly count every vote), little will change for the good of the people. It's amusing that the media and presidential candidates want the general public to believe this is the most important election of their lives, just as it was in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
All right, this election is important. It's important to understand that the elections are absolutely meaningless because the civil rights of American citizens have been slowly but surely stripped away, the constitution shredded, and the two-party system guarantees mediocre politicians and worse outcomes. Not voting, i.e., withdrawing consent, is the only way Americans are ever going to regain the freedoms lost over the past 12 years, but, as is usual in America, the people have been asleep for so long, they merely follow along, in a zombie trance, trusting in a system built on lies, fraud and special interests.
A day of reckoning is soon to come. Best be prepared.
Dow 13,169.43, -38.52 (0.29%)
NASDAQ 3,022.52, +1.66 (0.05%)
S&P 500 1,404.11, -1.76 (0.13%)
NYSE Composite 8,012.29, -32.47 (0.40%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,321,221,625
NYSE Volume 2,340,765,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2214-3277
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 116-55
WTI crude oil: 92.73, -0.14
Gold: 1,612.60, -10.20
Silver: 27.77, -0.30
There is a serious problem developing if the world's most active market - the US stock exchanges - continue the daily pattern of losses in the morning followed by sharp reversal and firming up throughout the remainder of the session.
Combined trading volumes for the NYSE and NASDAQ today reached the nadir for the year and could possibly represent the lowest trading volume since the 2008 crash.
This is worse than a liquidity issue; it is a confidence issue. Individual investors have fled the marketplace, seeking safer havens in raw land, gold, silver and other hard assets.
Small, passive investors, such as those stuck in pension plans, IRAs or 401k plans, have no options other than to cash out and take the penalty, but the PPT has made that approach seem ludicrous by pumping up equities on a regular basis.
Were stocks free to trade without government intervention, the p/e multiples would be in the range of eight to ten, sending indices plummeting, reflecting the true weakness in the markets, but that's not going to happen until sometime close to the election, which is now a mere 13 weeks away.
The candidates are posturing and the rhetoric will get louder and more divisive as the conventions approach, though it's all for show, meaning nothing, as compaign promises are routinely broken. Whichever candidates are chosen (or appropriated by the black boxes that purportedly count every vote), little will change for the good of the people. It's amusing that the media and presidential candidates want the general public to believe this is the most important election of their lives, just as it was in 2000, 2004 and 2008.
All right, this election is important. It's important to understand that the elections are absolutely meaningless because the civil rights of American citizens have been slowly but surely stripped away, the constitution shredded, and the two-party system guarantees mediocre politicians and worse outcomes. Not voting, i.e., withdrawing consent, is the only way Americans are ever going to regain the freedoms lost over the past 12 years, but, as is usual in America, the people have been asleep for so long, they merely follow along, in a zombie trance, trusting in a system built on lies, fraud and special interests.
A day of reckoning is soon to come. Best be prepared.
Dow 13,169.43, -38.52 (0.29%)
NASDAQ 3,022.52, +1.66 (0.05%)
S&P 500 1,404.11, -1.76 (0.13%)
NYSE Composite 8,012.29, -32.47 (0.40%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,321,221,625
NYSE Volume 2,340,765,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2214-3277
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 116-55
WTI crude oil: 92.73, -0.14
Gold: 1,612.60, -10.20
Silver: 27.77, -0.30
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