Stocks at Multi-Year Highs: Tide Detergent as Currency

The S&P closed today at it's highest level since the fall of 2007, a more than five-year-high, breaching the psychological 1500 level at the close of trading. That left the S&P with an eight-day winning streak, the longest since 2004, prompting claims by pundits and analysts that the market was just beginning a new supercycle bull market.

All snickering aside, a massive bull run on top of what has been one of the longest straight-up bull markets without a significant, sustained correction (46 months and counting), is a call that only the masters of the money universe on Wall Street could make with a straight face.

Whatever side of the trade you're on - and if you're short, you're dead - there's little doubt that four years of ZIRP and constant money printing by the Federal Reserve has finally yielded the desired results" a runaway risk asset market in stocks forcing forgetfulness about risk and the all-time high in consumer credit. The new bubble has been blown and American consumers are seemingly content to blow it until it bursts.

Coupled with the nascent recovery in housing, stocks as an asset class have proven the darlings of hedge funds, pension funds and evryone except the individual investor, whose memory still appears to be focused on the crash of 2008 and continuing uncertainty in the general economy.

Like it or not, however, Wall Street is enjoying one of the best runs of increases ever - not just this January, but throughout the four-plus years since the painful crash.

It's enough to prompt the fearful to get back in the game, though, with indices approaching all-time highs, it just doesn't seem a prudent entry point.

And, just in case you're not up on ghetto culture, laundry detergent - specifically Tide, made by Proctor & Gamble - has become the new currency of choice, a 150-ounce bottle redeemable on the street for $5 cash or $10 worth of weed or crack cocaine.

In the right circles, America's most popular detergent goes by the moniker, "liquid gold," and a crime spree of national magnitude has retailers locking down bottles of the stuff and putting additional security guards on patrol in the aisles.

Dow 13,895.98, +70.65(0.51%)
NASDAQ 3,149.71, +19.33(0.62%)
S&P 500 1,502.96, +8.14(0.54%)
NYSE Composite 8,904.53, +47.95(0.54%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,932,190,500
NYSE Volume 3,653,707,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3788-2649
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 540-21
WTI crude oil: 95.88, -0.07
Gold: 1,656.60, -13.30
Silver: 31.21, -0.516

Dow Pushes Higher Again; S&P on 7-Day Win Streak

Dow up again, sixth day in a row. S&P eked out the narrowest of possible gains to extend its winning streak to seven straight, the most since 2006. NASDAQ down due to Apple being hammered.

That's it. Play nice.

Dow 13,825.33, +46.00 (0.33%)
NASDAQ 3,130.38, -23.29 (0.74%)
S&P 500 1,494.82, +0.01 (0.00%)
NYSE Composite 8,856.59, +27.93 (0.32%)
NASDAQ Volume 2,049,702,125
NYSE Volume 3,998,358,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3592-2854
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 667-18
WTI crude oil: 95.95, +0.72
Gold: 1,669.90, -16.80
Silver: 31.72, -0.717

Dow Continues to Power Higher; Apple Cored After Hours

Editor's Note: Apologies for not posting yesterday. We had a major crash of our main computer on Sunday and have been working off a partially-impaired computer since, making life difficult and blogging an excursion into 1990s computing. A bew computer (due to arrive by Monday) should get everything back to normal within a few days.

Stocks keep climbing on hopes that the congress and the president can resolve their debt ceiling differences by passing a temporary extension (read: kicking can a bit down the road) and promising to get serious long before their May deadline (we will believe that when we see it).

The House passed the bill paving the way for an extension of the debt limit until May 19, when it will be reset to reflect additional borrowing through the interim period, voting overwhelmingly in favor across party lines, 285-144.

On Tuesday, existing haome sales came in below forecast, at 4.94M, on expectations of 5.10M (annualized). Not to worry, stocks put in another day of gains.

The Dow was the big winner today, thanks almost entirely to IBM, even though Big Blue has made the bulk of its profits over the past two years by buying back shares, thus reducing the number of shares available and making the EPS number more palatable.

Only 12 stocks on the Dow were up, compared to 17 closing in the red. Coca-Cola (KO) finished unchanged.

McDonald's reports that profits in the US were highly correlated to sales off its dollar menu, implying that either the American pallet enjoys the cheaper menu items or the American wallet is not very well-filled these days.

Apparently, not everyone is convinced that the only thing that matters is what happens in Washington. The NYSE Composite closed lower on the session.

So far in 2013, Dow Jones Industrials have finished higher on 11 of 16 trading days, including the last four straight. The average is up a whopping 675 points, roughly a five percent gain, which, in more normal times, might be good for a full year.

Caution is advised, though with the Fed pumping liquidity with every last ounce of reserve (no pun intended), the chances are that any pullback will be temporary and short-lived.

After hours, shares of Apple (AAPL) were slashed, as the company reported flat earnings per share on increased revenue (18%) year-over-year. The stock was down nearly five percent, falling below the 500 level once again.

Dow 13,779.17, +66.96(0.49%)
NASDAQ 3,153.67, +10.49(0.33%)
S&P 500 1,494.78, -2.22(0.15%)
NYSE Composite 8,828.35, -4.40 (0.05%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,687,925,130
NYSE Volume 3,764,679,750
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2909-3504
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 510-10
WTI crude oil: 95.23, -1.45
Gold: 1,686.70, -6.50
Silver: 32.44, +0.262

Stocks Ramp Higher as Fed Keeps Pumping Full On

What we have here is a self-reinforcing mechanism.

As long as the Fed keeps buying treasuries and MBS, don't expect stocks to do anything but continue going straight up. Those who have 401Ks, mutual funds, individual stocks, ETFs, etc., can rest easy. The Fed has your back.

For everyone else, tough cookies (and higher prices for them). Simply amazing.

Monday is Martin Luther King Day. Markets are closed.

Dow 13,649.70, +53.68 (0.39%)
NASDAQ 3,134.71, -1.29 (0.04%)
S&P 500 1,485.98, +5.04 (0.34%)
NYSE Composite 8,792.58, +26.03 (0.30%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,861,060,250
NYSE Volume 4,018,652,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 3764-2612
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 453-13
WTI crude oil: 95.56, +0.07
Gold: 1,687.00, -3.80
Silver: 31.93, +0.122

Dow Hits Five-Year High; Why Isn't Anyone Celebrating?

Money has to go somewhere, and today it went straight into equities, pushing the Dow to a five-year high.

Whether or not this euphoric advance was based on anything more than the Fed's continuing POMO operations remains to be seen.

Housing starts and building permits for December were figuratively "through the roof," though on Main Street America, people are wondering just who it is that is buying all these new homes.

In the real economy - the one that functions on dollars and cents, not swaps, repos, debt financing and accounting fantasies - it still feels like a recession. Stores are largely empty, incomes are still declining overall and the bulk of the US consumer class has just been hit with a 2% tax increase, thanks to the assembled dunces in congress and at the White House.

Unemployment claims today came in at a multi-month low of 335,000, though continuing claims increased from 3127K to 3214K in one week, so, something at the BLS isn't quite adding up, though that's largely been the case since 2006 or before.

The Philadelphia Fed index of economic activity printed a -5.8 for the current month, following a positive 4.6 in December. This reading comes on the heels of Empire Manufacturing (NY state) showing a -7.8 after a -7.3.

If none of this makes any sense to you, consider that Boeing (BA), after having all of their 787 "Dreamliners" (make that "Nightmare Flight") grounded by the FAA (note: this is after years and years of delays and missed deadlines), shares of the nation's top plane builder finished up 92 cents (1.24%).

Beyond that, ZeroHedge notes that if you strip out the gains made by Bank of America - the top performing Dow stock of 2012 - for releasing loan loss reserves (an accounting trick), the bank actually lost something on the order of $2.5 billion last year.

Regular readers (or at least those who check the stats at the bottom of each post) will take note that new highs - new lows has today reached the pinnacle of absurdity.

Even in the very, very, very best of times there were always more than eight stocks hitting new 52-week lows, it's only natural in a normal, competitive environment. The number of new lows since the first of the year has been hovering in the teems for the most part. The money gushing from the Federal Reserve to the primary dealers to the stock market is causing the most unbalanced market ever witnessed.

And the debt ceiling increase that needs to be approved, but just seems to sit there, like a 300000000-ton weight over the US economy, ah, don't worry about that. Our "leaders" will find a way to ix that, certainly, positively, without a doubt.

We live in Wonderland. Sadly, only those who pad their wallets on Wall Street get to be either the Cheshire Cat, Mad Hatter or Alice.

Dow 13,596.02, +84.79 (0.63%)
NASDAQ 3,136.00, +18.46 (0.59%)
S&P 500 1,480.98, +8.31 (0.56%)
NYSE Composite 8,766.54, +55.98 (0.64%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,734,349,250
NYSE Volume 3,966,953,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4628-1787
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 525-8
WTI crude oil: 95.49, +1.25
Gold: 1,690.80, +7.60
Silver: 31.81, +0.268