Who Bought This Dip?

About the best that could be said about today's general market decline is that it could have been worse. Stocks were slammed right out of the opening bell, and quickly fell to their worst levels of the day. By around 11:00 am EDT, the Dow had slumped 180 points from the previous close, the NASDAQ was down 38, the S&P off by 20 and the Composite down a whopping 126 points.

Naturally, some traders smelled the unmistakable aroma of easy money, so the buying started in earnest, with the major averages getting back close to half of the losses by day's end.

Still, anyone buying this particular dip - which incidentally, began from a peak early in the morning on Tuesday - might not be in the chips any time soon, as the market of late has not shown a great propensity for quickly and quietly erasing losses from previous downfalls.

Despite yesterday's advance, stocks left half of the gains from early in the day off the table, vanished, so the decline on the Dow, from the top of 15,521.49 to today's close, is nearly 220 points, or, about 1 1/2 percent.

That surely isn't anything to write home about, but it is significant in a short, end-of-month week heading into the summer doldrums, so to speak. It's difficult to make a case for buying so close to a market all-time peak, but money has to go somewhere, it is said, though many outside the world of Wall Street are beginning to find better places for the dough than in stocks. Bonds have slumped as well, pushing up yields, the 10-year note hitting 2.16% yesterday before settling down at 2.11% today.

Other places people have been putting money are into homes, either as new purchases or renovations, classic and not-so-classic cars (everybody needs reliable transportation), arable land, small business machinery, art, collectibles, rarities, gold, silver and other hard assets.

If stocks continue to display weakness (or even if they continue to sprint back and forth and increase volatility) and the Fed continues twiddling and tweaking and cajoling the markets with jabberwocky talk about easing or tapering or slowing their bond purchases, people can and will look beyond the NYSE and the NASDAQ for better, tangible assets with intrinsic or functional value.

People may be wearying of the constant barrage of "suggestions" from the Fed, analysts, broker-dealers and other hucksters of equities and make the move to something that they can actually touch, feel and literally appreciate. Sometimes - and this may be one of those times - it's better to keep what money you have than to risk it in what appears to be a very risky environment.

Today's action was rather uniform, with all the major averages falling about the same percentage amount on better-than-average volume. If this looks like an orderly retreat, those who bought the dip midday might be wondering what happens when the market becomes a bit more disorderly.

Dow 15,302.80, -106.59 (0.69%)
Nasdaq 3,467.52, -21.37 (0.61%)
S&P 500 1,648.36, -11.70 (0.70%)
NYSE Composite 9,422.49 71.68(0.75%)
NYSE Volume 3,969,497,750
Nasdaq Volume 1,754,239,625
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1627-4849 (1:3)
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 172-151 (narrowing of the gap)
WTI crude oil: 93.13, -1.88
Gold: 1,391.30, +12.40
Silver: 22.45, +0.26

The Faded Tuesday Rally

Sure, it was the 20th straight Tuesday in which stocks have advanced, which must be some kind of weird market record, but today's rally really wasn't what one would call robust or sustaining.

First, the volume wasn't there. Second, more than half of the gains made in the first hour of trading were eviscerated by 2:30 pm, with an uninspired late surge getting some of gains back. In the end, it was a nothing move, albeit higher, but with a fairly negative bias as the day progressed. It was almost as if nobody really wanted to be a part of the day's action, even after a three-day holiday.

More and more, people are talking about the great disconnect between main Street - where things aren't going so well - and Wall Street, where it's a party every trading day, and this kind of talk is beginning to make the rounds to trader's desks and onto the trading floors.

While stocks continue to reach new heights, there is scarcely a soul who really believes that stocks can continue to ramp higher. Thus, a top has either been reached or is nearby, simply because of changing, doubting sentiment, which, after all, is the heart and soul and lifeblood of any market.

We all know this cannot continue indefinitely, so the question is whether it all comes apart at once or slowly grinds lower in spurts and spasms over a longer period of time, possibly years, possibly many years.

That is what's known as the unknown unknown. As such, we offer no answers, only more questions.

This market is like an old pair of jeans. You know they're tattered and worn out, and need to go, but the memories of good times and the comfortable feel keeps you from parting with them.

Dow 15,409.39, +106.29 (0.69%)
NASDAQ 3,488.89, +29.74 (0.86%)
S&P 500 1,660.06, +10.46 (0.63%)
NYSE Composite 9,494.16, +51.93 (0.55%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,708,082,250
NYSE Volume 3,719,940,250
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 4139-2471
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 514-63
WTI crude oil: 93.53, -0.62
Gold: 1,378.90, -7.70
Silver: 22.19, -0.303

It's a Three-Day Weekend. Go Enjoy It, But Take Some Time to Read This

Catchy headline, huh?

If anybody really wants to spend time this holiday weekend wondering when the global financial system is going to finally melt down, this is not the place to look.

Our team of 300 editors (j/k) was let go at noon today for a weekend at the Hamptons, so all we're leaving you with are a few tidbits.

The most overlooked story of the day was how big retailers took it on the chin in the first quarter, most blaming "weather" as the root of their revenue and earnings misses.

Among the losers reporting on Friday were Sears (SHLD, 50.25, -7.92(13.62%)); Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF, 50.02 -4.35(8.00%)); Aeropostale (Aro, 14.76 -1.72(10.44%)) and; The GAP (GPS, 40.66 -0.70(1.69%)). While the mainstream tended to overlook these stunning losses - as they do all negative economic stories - consumers are apparently changing their spending habits, more along the lines of frugality and austerity, shunning brands and big-ticket items. Sears, BTW, is a dead entity. The market and the BOD just haven't realized it yet.

The other "tells" from today's disorderly trading were the low volume (nothing new there, move along), the drop in the NYSE Comp, which nobody pays any attention to, except us, since it is only one of the broadest measures of corporate America, the tape-painting which brought the Dow into positive territory and the other exchanges close to unchanged, the ongoing slippage in the A-D line and the compression in the new highs-lows (many fewer new highs the past few days, more new lows).

Make sure to remember what Memorial Day is all about, preserving the memory of those who died defending our values and freedoms. Semper Fidelis.

Dow 15,303.10, +8.60 (0.06%)
NASDAQ 3,459.14, -0.27 (0.01%)
S&P 500 1,649.60, -0.91 (0.06%)
NYSE Composite 9,427.63, -38.68 (0.41%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,364,804,375
NYSE Volume 2,753,824,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2894-3506
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 128-37
WTI crude oil: 94.15, -0.10
Gold: 1,386.60, -5.20
Silver: 22.50, -0.012

US Stocks Reverse Early Losses; How Buy-Backs Distort Corporate Earnings; John Cleese Plays Merchant Banker

After yesterday's Fed comments, overnight, Japan got whipsawed, with the Nikkei down more than 7% on the session. Markets in Europe also tanked, but here in America, where any news is regarded as good, markets erased massive losses garnered out of the gate (Dow was down 127 points early in the session) and finished nearly flat, though the major indices finished in the red (not enough POMO, one assumes).

What a horrible joke this market continues to be. It is amazing and disgusting at the same time. No matter what, however, it will never go down until the big players deem it is time to do so, and, obviously, today was not that time.

Today brings more information about how the rally in equities has been manufactured by corporations buying back record amounts of stock and thusly skewing earnings reports, making them appear positive when they are nothing but figments of creative accounting.

For simplicity purposes, when a company buys back its own stock, it takes it out of circulation, lowering the number of shares by which earnings are gauged, i.e., EPS or "earnings per share."

So, if Corporation A has 1000 shares outstanding, and profits of $2000, their EPS is calculated thus, $2000 (earnings) divided by 1000 (shares) = $2.00 earnings per share.

When corporation A buys back 100 shares and actually does a little worse, with profits of $1900, this looks positive because EPS is up, because $1900 in earnings is now divided by just 900 shares, not 1000, so the resultant EPS is now $2.11, even though the company is actually shrinking.

This will only become a huge problem when people en masse realize that most corporate profits these days are nothing more than financial trickery, though that could be a long time coming, considering how 95% of America is financially illiterate.

Bottom line, this will eventually be a great thing for America, when the fraud and rot is finally rooted out, because most of these giant corporations will be nothing but hollowed out shells and real Americans can begin rebuilding a real economy.

Max Keiser has the rundown in today's edition of the Keiser Report:

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Here's a a comment from ZH, that explains a simple philosophy of life (with a few edits) in response to a comment to this article:

Having wasted the time it took to read most of this article, I found your example to be most profound and gave you the second up arrow. If I could somehow bestow more "ups" I would, but the point is that the article bases the plight of an entire generation - X, in this case - on luck, timing and the evils of the "system."

The article, like most presented by CHS, is more socialist bullcrap and your comment proves him 100% wrong. Anyone with initiative and a little bit of smarts and some skills can become self-sufficient and perhapes even "wealthy" or prosperous, as is the ongoing discussion with MachoMan.

Here's how I define prosperous (for myself, and I think I'm the richest guy in the world): No debt, paid-in-full domicile, with enough land to grow enough food for 1/2 a year for self or family. Steady income stream, few, or no employees. Obviously, I run my own business.

There are many ways to make more money - and keep almost all of it out of the hands of the government leeches - than having a "job." A job or career is like a yoke around one's neck; one is forever tied to that particular skill set. When that skill set becomes antiquated or overtaken by technology, one immediately becomes lost. Those who do for themselves almost never reach this state; instead, they find new ways to do things, are constantly in search of better ways to escape the tyranny of the system. Stay in the system and your life gets ruled by it. You become a slave to debt, government or keeping up with your peers, any one of which will suck the life out of you.

Stop measuring success by money and you'll find a richness of life right in your own back yard. I strongly recommend reading anything by Gene Langsdon, but especially the Contrary Farmer's Invitation to Gardening. Lots of insight on life, living and growing stuff you can EAT.

As an aside, I broke up with a gal eight months ago who was totally materialistic, to whom nothing mattered except how much one made, how new one's car was and how many cool gadgets you had. Life is so much richer since I began reading Langsdon (last year) and left that simple-minded troll behind. (And, no, I'm not bitter. I am justified.)

Bottom line, ditch that dead-end job and become your own boss. Take some responsibility for your own life and stop whining. You'll feel better and might just thrive on your own.

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Since it's only Thursday and the major indices are already staring at losses for the week, a bit of humor at the expense of bankers seems most appropriate, as in the clip below wherein Monty Python's John Cleese plays Merchant Banker.



Dow 15,294.50, -12.67 (0.08%)
NASDAQ 3,459.42, -3.88 (0.11%)
S&P 500 1,650.51, -4.84 (0.29%)
NYSE Composite 9,466.81, -41.24 (0.43%)
NASDAQ Volume 1,720,003,000
NYSE Volume 4,272,195,500
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 2807-3659
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 85-59
WTI crude oil: 94.25, -0.03
Gold: 1,391.80, +24.40
Silver: 22.51, 0.036

Market Reverses Following Fed Minutes Release

The markets opened with ebullience after NY Fed President Bill Dudley's comments suggested that the Federal Reserve was not considering any major policy changes, with the Dow reaching the highs of the day - the Dow gaining 155 points - between 10:00 and 11:00 am EDT.

All of a sudden, when Fed Chairman, speaking before the congressional Joint Economic Committee, didn't absolutely rule out that the Fed could begin tapering bond purchases before Labor Day, stocks took an abrupt U-turn, but stabilized in positive territory.

Upon the release of minutes from the Fed's April policy meeting, however, things began to get ugly. The minutes revealed that some members of the FOMC thought they should be tapering - or easing - right away or as early as their June meeting, considering the effects of the program and how the economy seemed to have been improving.

That had a chilling effect on the trading floor, as volume picked up, and stock prices headed south in one of the most volatile sessions in some time - a full 276-point round-trip on the Dow industrials. The other major indices followed suit and actually recorded worse losses, on a percentage basis.

Today's key reversal was a triple-engulfing variety, eclipsing the highs and lows of the three previous sessions, and that, to chartists everywhere, screams of directional bias, in this case, to the downside.

Whether or not traditional chart theory will hold water in this artificial liquidity environment is anybody's guess, because stocks have shown recently an uncanny ability to disregard any kind of bad news, though this kind of news - that the Fed might be pulling back the punch bowl from the drunken, leveraged party that is Wall Street - is of a different nature altogether.

As far as bull and bear markets are concerned, we're still a far cry from calling a turn, though tomorrow, the bull's reign will be entering its 51st month and stocks have just exhibited the kind of explosive move to the upside that is indicative of final tops. The coming days, weeks and months will be critical if only to ascertain whether this move is a one-day event, the beginning of a short-term correction or the start of a bear market.

Key factors to consider in today's movement were volume - one of the highest of the year - the advance-decline line and how meaningfully traders will take the mixed messages from various Fed officials.

Another insight is how fruitless the markets have become, when the only pertinent news concerns whether or not the Fed will keep accommodating the broken banks and brokerages with historical low interest rates, which incidentally, shot higher today, the 10-year breaking through the 2.0% yield mark.

Even more important is whether the Fed is actually planning to take its foot off the gas soon or is blowing more hot air, i.e., jawboning the market.

Considering the relative performance of the US economy (sluggish at best) and the consequences of tightening policy even a little bit from this unprecedentedly-accommodative posture it might be best to take a wait-and-see attitude toward the markets in general. Rather than an abrupt, decisive move to the downside (though it could very well happen), some sideways movements in the markets would seem to make more sense, at least until there is clarity on Fed policy, along with a host of other potential market-moving issues.

Dow 15,307.17, -80.41 (0.52%)
NASDAQ 3,463.30, -38.82 (1.11%)
S&P 500 1,655.35, -13.81 (0.83%)
NYSE Composite 9,501.99, -96.28 (1.00%)
NASDAQ Volume 2,058,095,625
NYSE Volume 4,350,662,000
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ Advance - Decline: 1555-4990
Combined NYSE & NASDAQ New highs - New lows: 753-35
WTI crude oil: 94.28, -1.90
Gold: 1,367.40, -10.20
Silver: 22.47, +0.017