Obama Wins; Stock Market Sinks on Tax Hike, Fiscal Cliff Fears, Europe

Tuesday was an early night in terms of presidential politics as President Barack Obama was elected overwhelmingly to a second term, whipping Republican challenger in almost every battleground state and winning the popular vote handily.

With the vote in Florida still being tallied (anybody surprised?), the Sunshine State turned out to be mostly inconsequential as the president swept the key states of Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Pennsylvania (which never really was in play), New Hampshire, Colorado and Nevada. Romney's sole win in the so-called "swing states" was in North Carolina, a state which Obama took by a narrow 0.3% in 2008.

Once the midwest states of Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio were declared for Obama, the race was over, but it wasn't until after midnight in the East that Mitt Romney gave his concession speech and later, President Obama gave a ripping, rhetorical speech extolling the virtues of freedom of choice, tolerance and working together toward shared goals and the great creation of our founders, the United States of America, individual states bound together by social compact.

In the House and Senate races, the makeup of congress remained largely the same, with Republicans dominating the House and Democrats strengthening their grip on the senate, winning key races in Virginia, Florida, and, especially, Massachusetts, where Elizabeth Warren, the fiery consumer rights advocate, took the seat away from Republican incumbent Scott Brown, in a major setback for big banks.

Warren, who worked on TARP and other reforms in Washington, especially the implementation of a consumer protection division at the Federal Reserve, will likely end up on the Senate banking Committee, possibly winning the chairmanship.

Another critical Senate race was won in Connecticut by Christopher Murphy, who defeated Linda McMahon, who wrestling millionaire who spent $100 million on her own campaign.

Jon Tester retained his Senate seat from Montana in a close race with Republican challenger Denny Rehberg, keeping the balance of power firmly in their control with 55 seats, along with one independent, Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The Democrats likely gained another ally when former governor, independent Angus King of Maine, won an open Senate seat that had been held by Republican Olympia Snowe. King has not indicated which party he would caucus with, though most believe it will be with Democrats. King won on the simple idea of making filibusters less of an effective measure in killing legislation, believing that excessive filibustering by Senate Republicans had blocked almost all significant legislation over the past four years.

There was little change in the House, as Reublicans retained control with 232 seats to 191 held by Democrats with a number of vacancies.

It wasn't long before other voices began to be heard, especially those on Wall Street who had been counting on a win by Republican Romney. Before the market opened, futures began a steep decline, though the catalyst may have nad more to do with comments by ECB president Mario Draghi and some dismal production figures from Germany, regarded as a stronghold in the recession-plagued continent.

Shortly after Germany's industrial production was reported to have fallen 1.2% in September, Draghi said that the crisis in Europe was beginning to take its toll on the industrial powerhouse that is the German economy.

Heading into the first post-election session, Dow futures were pointing toward a loss of more than 100 points at the open, and the result was worse, with the 132-point gain from Tuesday wiped out in the opening minute.

Stocks continued their descent until bottoming out just before noon, down 369 points, the biggest decline of the year, though some strengthening took all of the indices off their lows as the day progressed.

Still, the losses were dramatic and especially in the banking sector, where ank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and other big bank concerns were off more than five percent. All 10 S&P sectors finished in the red, the S&P could not defend the 1400 level and nearly bounced off its 200-day moving averages, the NASDAQ - aided by Apple's continued decline into bear market territory - broke down below its 200-DMA and the Dow closed below its 200-DMA for the first time since the beginning of June.

In Greece, rioters threw fire bombs at police in anticipation of another vote on austerity measures designed to pave the way for another round of financing from the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB. The vote, scheduled for midnight in Greece (5:00 pm ET), is expected to pass, though the populace has seemingly had enough of policies dictated by outsiders.

For Wall Street, the day presented a perfect storm of disappointment, fears of higher taxes on dividends, tighter regulations of banks, uncertainty over tax and spending policies heading into 2013, and renewed concerns over our trading partners in Europe.

The steep declines may have only been a beginning, however, as no policies have changed, and, actually, the political makeup in Washington remained the same as it had been the day before. The continued gridlock coming from the White House and Capitol Hill may be the most disconcerting factor of all.

Some internal damage was done to markets, with the advance-decline line showing a nearly 5-1 edge for losers and new highs being surpassed by new lows, 94-174.

With none of the important initiatives nearing resolution, there seems to be nowhere for the market to go but down, now that the election is over, earnings season is just about finished and the market must focus on fundamentals and locking in gains for the year. The remainder of 2012 may prove to be quite challenging to investors.

Dow 12,932.73, -312.95 (2.36%)
NASDAQ 2,937.29, -74.64 (2.48%)
S&P 500 1,394.53, -33.86 (2.37%)
NYSE Composite 8,138.80, -173.55 (2.09%)
NASDAQ Volume 4,322,112,500
NYSE Volume 2,059,028,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 961-4613
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 94-174
WTI crude oil: 84.44, -4.27
Gold: 1,714.00, -1.00
Silver: 31.66, -0.373

Romney Rally Fades Into Close; Gold Silver Up Sharply

Wall Street is still largely clinging to the belief that their one-percent incarnation, Mitt Romney, can somehow pull rabbits out of hats or extra votes out of swing states and capture the 2012 presidential election.

Cynicism, in opposition to this view runs high, as Wall Street has proven, time and again, that it doesn't care, nor does it matter, who holds the reigns of power; they will buy them off at any cost, usually one much lower than they're willing to pay.

Based upon the wide-eyed optimism over a Romney presidency = which would fit neatly with a Republican-led House of Representatives - stocks bolted higher at the open, boosted again just prior to the noon hour and faded slightly into the close. The Dow was up 178 points at the day's heights, closing weakly on moderate volume.

All of the major indices showed strong gains, led by the Industrials, which added just more than one percent. Iy was the third point movement of between 130 and 140 points in the last six sessions.

Recently beaten-down commodities also posted impressive gains. Gold raced back above the $1700 mark, oil and silver also made significant headway.

The big prize comes tonight, with polls in Eastern states closing beginning at 7:00 pm. The first big tests will be Virginia and Ohio, with plenty of twists and turns to the political narrative in store as the night wears on.

Dow 13,245.68, +133.24 (1.02%)
NASDAQ 3,011.93, +12.27 (0.41%)
S&P 500 1,428.39, +11.13 (0.79%)
NYSE Composite 8,311.67, +71.42 (0.87%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,744,160,250
NYSE Volume 3,261,801,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3724-1748
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 198-61
WTI crude oil: 88.71, +3.06
Gold: 1,715.00, +31.80
Silver: 32.03, +0.906

Calm Before the Storm; Markets Flat One Day Prior to Elections

Election Day is tomorrow, and markets mimicked the mood of the country, delivering a nothing session in the wake of the monumental event on the horizon.

Stocks were down hard in the morning, but buyers stepped in to stabilize the situation, eventually boosting stocks in the final half hour to close near the highs of the day.

That's about it, since there were scant earnings announcements of little importance, and everybody laying down - or not - bets on tomorrow's election outcome. All the major indices close positive, though only slightly, and trading volume was sub-standard.

Dow 13,112.44, +19.28 (0.15%)
NASDAQ 2,999.66, +17.53 (0.59%)
S&P 500 1,417.26, +3.06 (0.22%)
NYSE Composite 8,240.26, +5.34 (0.06%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,464,733,000
NYSE Volume 2,898,888,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3016-2454
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 102-79
WTI crude oil: 85.65, +0.79
Gold: 1,683.20, +8.00
Silver: 31.13, +0.271

Wall Street Taketh Away: Jobs, Sandy Aftermath Not Pretty

Remember the big ramp-up in stocks yesterday, based upon the new, revised-metholdology ADP October jobs data?

Gone.

That is despite a big beat in the non-farm payroll data released prior to Friday's open. The BLS said that the US created 171,000 net new jobs in the month of October, and, initially, the stock jocks loved it, pushing futures higher and sending the Dow Jones Industrials up 57 points at the open.

Trouble was, however, that the positive jobs data had already been priced in, off of the ADP beat. So, sorry, Charlie, no profit for you if you're a dollar short and a day late, as is the case. By 10:00 am, the Dow was flat. It and the other indices crawled lower through out the day, with the losses accelerating in the final two hours of the session.

There were other factors to stocks - and commodities - giving back everything on the final day of trading for the week. Corporate reporting for the third quarter has been seminally sour. Today's miss was by Chevron (CVX), a Dow component, which saw third-quarter net income fall to $5.25 billion, or $2.69 per share, from $7.83 billion, or $3.92 per share, a year earlier.

Chevron earned $2.55 per share, compared with the analysts' average estimate of $2.83. Oops! Poor babies, their efforts to skin every last dollar from the pockets of US consumers weren't quite as good as last year. The price of oil is down and headed even lower today.

Somebody send a memo to the CEOs of the energy companies and other Fortune 500 CEOs: there's a global slowdown going on, mostly because you guys have overpriced everything from baby formula to burials, and people simply can't foot the bill any more.

Other than sliding corporate earnings (note: Most major corporations are still massively profitable, just not as profitable as last year, or, in some cases, last quarter, but some, like Sharp and Panasonic are close to bankruptcy, with more to follow), there's a litany of issues facing the global economy, like the fiscal cliff and mountains of debt and unfunded liabilities worldwide (no small matter), the continuing crisis in Europe (still unresolved and getting worse), the uncertainty of the presidential election in the US (hint: Obama's going to win easily, which is another reason Wall Street is unhappy), and this little inconvenient storm called Hurricane Sandy, which still has most of the New Jersey shoreline, Long Island, Staten Island and lower Manhattan still without power and people suffering in cold weather, without fuel, food, and gas lines extending for miles in Jersey and New York, not because there's no gas, but no electricity to power the pumps and stations, many of which remain closed.

Yep, things are not good overall, and, from the looks of things, they're not getting any better. The damages from Sandy will easily exceed those of Katrina. It doesnt take a genius to figure out that a massive storm which wreaked havoc on the most densely-populated area of the country is going to cost more than the laughable estimates of $20 billion that have been bandied about by so-called experts. Try $60 billion or more, maybe in excess of $100 billion, and that number is going to pt a serious dent in fourth quarter GDP.

The current wisdom being foisted upon the supposedly-knowledgeable investing community - that all the destruction from Hurricane Sandy will eventually be a net positive for the economy a la Frederic Bastiat's "broken window" parable - is complete media hogwash put forward by economist goon-whores like Moody's Mark Zandi, Mesirow's Diane Swonk and Deutsche Bank's Joe LaVorgna (yes, the Germans always like to have Italians do their dirty work), and are completely off base.

While NYC Mayor Bloomberg has been catching considerable flak - most of it well-deserved - for pushing ahead with the New York City Marathon this weekend, the long tail of Hurricane Sandy is likely to help push the US economy into recession in the fourth quarter of 2012 and beyond. Unlike Katrina, which concentrated its wrath upon New Orleans and the Southern shores, Sandy hit the highest income folks in the country, and that's not something that's going to be erased from the memory or the bottom line very easily. Just to make sure everybody's on the same page here, expect every fourth quarter profit miss to mention - at least in part - the effects of the hurricane on profits, whether real or imagined. Hurricanes and weather overall make for great scapegoats.

So, this week on Wall Street was more or less a wash. Two days closed, a flat day Wednesday, up Thursday and down Friday. The sharpie day-traders made a huge buck to be sure, but America and the global economy suffered terribly, NY marathon or not.

And, not to forget, Apple's iPad Mini was released for sale globally today. Lines were much shorter than for other Apple product launches, which goes to figure: you introduce a mini-tablet, you get mini-lines.

And, just to rub some salt into already open wounds, another storm is setting up to hit the Northeast next week.

Just what we all need.

Dow 13,093.16, -139.46 (1.05%)
NASDAQ 2,982.13, -37.93 (1.26%)
S&P 500 1,414.20, -13.39 (0.94%)
NYSE Composite 8,234.91, -76.45 (0.92%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,820,933,250
NYSE Volume 3,576,460,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1575-3880
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 211-87
WTI crude oil: 84.86, -2.23
Gold: 1,675.20, -40.30
Silver: 30.86, -1.391

ADP Jobs Data Sends Stocks Soaring; Hurricane Sandy Forgotten by Wall Street

Apparently, if we use Wall Street as a proxy for the general economy (which has proven over and over again to NOT be the case), the damages from Hurricane Sandy will not cost corporations anything. In fact, today's gains all but forgot that most of the Eastern coastline of the United States - from Maryland and Delaware to Connecticut - are federal disaster areas.

All that mattered to Wall Street was getting stocks higher, putting on a good face, especially after the "new methodology" of the ADP private payroll survey - with an assist from Moody's (now there's a clean bunch) - is acceptable in advance of Friday's October non-farm payroll data.

The ADP report was hardly believable, showing that there were 158,000 new private sector jobs created in the month of October. This makes the estimates for NFP of 250,000 tomorrow a slam dunk and possibly already priced in.

Off the ADP news, which was released at 8:15 am EDT, stocks shot up at the open, ramped to highs between 10:00 and 11:00 am and held their gains well into the close.

Everything's great! Except that real unemployment is somewhere around 15%, the US borrows 40% of every dollar it spends and fraud and manipulation by banks and corporations continues to go unchecked. Not to worry, we're going to elect Mitt Romney, who will fix it all, because the fix is in, at least according to Wall Street and Fox news.

There's another scandal brewing, however, that will overshadow everything up to this point in the now-four-year-old financial crisis, involving gold, specifically, the gold stored in vaults in New York and London for other nations. Germany has been trying to get a peek at their gold, but has been continually rebuffed.

Jim Willie's latest salvo at the banking elite has a very good take on the matters at hand.

Here's what one of the commenters had to say about gold and bankers:

“Tiny Ghana demanded its gold return from London, but suddenly its leader (John Atta Mills) showed up dead.”

We’re supposed to be surprised by this? Consider that president Andrew Jackson messed with the banksters and had 5 unsuccessful attempts on his life. President Lincoln messed with the banksters via printing debt-free greenbacks and ended up dead. President James Garfield supported a bi-metallic money standard and ended up dead. President William McKinley was assassinated after publicly supporting sound money and a gold standard. President Kennedy authorized the US Treasury to print silver certificates, interfering with the Fed’s position of sole US money creator and ended up dead. Am I missing anyone who messed with the banksters honey pot and was killed? Probably. Murdering your opponents IS the routine behavior of a thugocracy.

Kind of says it all, doesn't it?

Dow 13,232.62, +136.16 (1.04%)
NASDAQ 3,020.06, +42.83 (1.44%)
S&P 500 1,427.59, +15.43 (1.09%)
NYSE Composite 8,311.36, +89.97 (1.09%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,884,510,500
NYSE Volume 3,925,129,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3949-1550
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 291-77
WTI crude oil: 87.09, +0.85
Gold: 1,715.50, -3.60
Silver: 32.25, -0.068