Weak Jobs Number; Worst In Six Years Rattles Market

At the end of the day, the weakest jobs number since 2010 didn't deter stock traders much, though the damage was more severe earlier in the session, another carbon copy of the previous two, with a deep drop at the open, followed by relentless pumping towards the positive.

While Friday's effort left much to be desired, it has now become all-too-obvious that there is no such thing as a fair and open market in US stocks, especially in the face of negative economic data. The federal government and agents of the Fed are adamant about painting a rosy picture of the economy, even though the metrics - especially manufacturing and non-farm payrolls this week - are using a strikingly different palette.

The 38,000 new jobs created in May, as reported by the BLS, was miles below the consensus estimate of 164,000 and gives the Fed much more thinking material as concerns a rate hike, which now appears to be off the table for June, at the very least.

What the number suggests is that despite all the howls from the president, his advisors and others on TV, the economy is in a precarious state, not one in which overheating is even a remote possibility. This would be no time to raise interest rates.

While stocks held their own during a tumultuous week, Friday saw gold and silver rally back, perhaps an indication that all is really not well in the kingdom of Obama.

On The Week:
Dow: -66.16, (-0.37%)
S&P 500: +0.07 (0.00)
NASDAQ: +9.01 (+0.18)

For the Day:
S&P 500: 2,099.13, -6.13 (0.29%)
Dow: 17,807.06, -31.50 (0.18%)
NASDAQ: 4,942.52, -28.85 (0.58%)

Crude Oil 48.90 -0.55% Gold 1,246.50 +2.80% EUR/USD 1.1366 0.00% 10-Yr Bond 1.70 -5.91% Corn 418.25 +0.72% Copper 2.12 +2.42% Silver 16.44 +2.59% Natural Gas 2.76 -0.54% Russell 2000 1,164.14 -0.55% VIX 13.47 -1.17% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4515 0.00% USD/JPY 106.5450 0.00%

Wealth Building Suggestions In The Age Of Idiocy

Here are some pretty simple ideas for building and preserving wealth. When it comes to debt, not all is bad, though excessive debt is a non-starter for most people. Manage debt wisely. Any business will tell you they needed a loan or an equity partner to make money; people aren't very different.

Here are a few suggestions:
1. Buy silver (dollar cost average; buy a certain amount, be it $20 or $2000, per month, regardless of price.
2. Hide silver (self-explanatory) and don't touch it. This is your secret stash, outside the govenment's hands.
3. Find a business you can operate from home, even if it's a little more than just a hobby. Deduct all allowable expenses. I've been telling people to do this for years and the number who have listened and done it approaches ZERO. The tax code makes it easy to deduct substantial portions of your expenses.
4. Read "The Richest Man In Babylon." Follow the book's advice. Here's's a PDF online.
5. Never buy prepared foods at a grocery. Total junk, and a huge ripoff. Cook meals at home.
6. Have a garden. Even a 6x6 garden can produce a significant amount of produce.
7. Never stop learning. Knowledge is power.
8. Spend money like you don't have much. Always ask for a discount or deal.
9. Never, ever hire an investment advisor. If you think you don't know enough about investing, see #7 and educate yourself. The fact that you are reading this post makes you a candidate for being your own investment advisor and money manager.
10. Be a Boy Scout. Their motto is "Be Prepared."
11. Never panic, in either buying or selling situations. Trust your gut.

There are many more...

As far as the markets are concerned, Thursday was a repeat performance (by agents of central bankers) of Wednesday, with early losses rapidly erased and the major averages making a diagonal line from lower left to upper right on the charts.

Truly disturbing behavior from some exceptionally disturbed people.

Viola!
S&P 500: 2,105.26, +5.93 (0.28%)
Dow: 17,838.56, +48.89 (0.27%)
NASDAQ: 4,971.36, +19.11 (0.39%)

Crude Oil 49.15 -0.04% Gold 1,213.10 +0.04% EUR/USD 1.1149 -0.04% 10-Yr Bond 1.81 -1.90% Corn 414.75 -0.12% Copper 2.07 +0.17% Silver 16.00 -0.16% Natural Gas 2.78 0.00% Russell 2000 1,170.58 +0.65% VIX 13.63 -4.01% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4405 -0.10% USD/JPY 108.9500 +0.08%

Suspicious Behavior In Stocks Leads To Belief That Fed Is Buying

After dismal data out of Japan and some troubling manufacturing numbers in the US, stocks opened sharply lower on Wednesday, reversing the short-covering faux rally into Tuesday's close.

But, the trauma was short-lived, ending abruptly, absolutely minutes after the open. Some people surely got caught short at the wrong moment, thinking, wrongly, that the era of central bank noise and confusion was about to meet a fitting end. Stocks continued an inexorable ascent throughout the day, based on nothing other than front-running computer bots and anti-competitive algos run by criminal banks.

Of course, no such thing would happen. The signs of a collapsing global economy have been with us for the past seven or eight years now, but somehow, stocks continue to pace along, and lately, they just fluctuate in a narrow zone.

This trading conundrum - in which outflows from equities has been ongoing for seventeen weeks - has to be the work of the central bank, or banks, acting in concert to keep asset prices from collapsing to where they might belong, about 40-=0% lower than where they currently reside.

Since the Bank of Japan has been spotted owning a hefty percentage of the biggest companies on the Nikkei, it shouldn't surprise anybody that the Federal Reserve is working behind the scenes to keep US equities floating on vapors.

It's a disgusting, completely inappropriate condition. The Fed is engaged in the worst form of market manipulation, in secret, buying selectively to keep prices from collapsing, in a most offensive manner.

While Money Daily considers this kind of activity to be nothing short of criminal behavior at best and immoral destruction of the whole economy at worst, others are entitled to their opinions, such as the corrupt Keyenesians and insiders on Capitol Hill who profit handsomely from Fed interventions.

Their opinions are typically based on nothing other than self-interest, greed and keeping their jobs. They should all be out on the street. Hope springs eternal.

Maybe by November.

Oh, Happy Day!
S&P 500: 2,099.33, +2.37 (0.11%)
Dow: 17,789.67, +2.47 (0.01%)
NASDAQ: 4,952.25, +4.20 (0.08%)

Crude Oil 48.91 -0.39% Gold 1,215.20 -0.19% EUR/USD 1.1188 +0.02% 10-Yr Bond 1.85 +0.65% Corn 412.00 +1.79% Copper 2.07 -1.07% Silver 15.98 -0.12% Natural Gas 2.74 +0.84% Russell 2000 1,163.04 +0.71% VIX 14.20 +0.07% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4411 -0.01% USD/JPY 109.4650 -0.03%

A Beginning And An End: Stocks And Oil Hit The Skids

Tuesday marked a beginning and an end in more ways than just the day and date.

On the one hand, today was the start of the trading week, shortened by Monday's Memorial Day holiday. On the other, it was May 31, the final trading day of the month, a date normally associated with the buying of stocks as "window dressing," wherein funds pad their holdings with the most favored stock offerings.

As days go, this one was a downer for stocks, with the major averages taking a deep dip before a late-session rally brought the S&P and NASDAQ respectively closer to breakeven and into positive territory. The Dow suffered the worst, losing nearly 150 points before ripping off a significant portion of the losses in the closing hour, ending with a drop close to 1/2 percent.

Thus, the day's trading may have marked the start of another downtrend for stocks, following the massive gains of the prior week. Notable was trading in WTI crude oil futures, which tested the $50 mark before falling off to close more than a dollar lower. Oil has been on a tear since bottoming out at $26 per barrel in mid-February.

An astonishing feat of market movement, the price of crude has nearly doubled in just over three months, but the phony pumping may have come to a quick end. Time will tell if $50 turns out to be a price too high to bear and whether stocks will begin a hasty retreat, having tested the top of the short-term range.

Investing and market-watching alike have become spectator sports of sorts for many, depending upon the level and length of financial repression one can endure, both of which have been in play for far too long.

S&P 500: 2,096.96, -2.10 (0.10%)
Dow: 17,787.20, -86.02 (0.48%)
NASDAQ: 4,948.05, +14.55 (0.29%)

Crude Oil 48.83 -1.01% Gold 1,217.50 +0.07% EUR/USD 1.1133 +0.03% 10-Yr Bond 1.83 -0.92% Corn 406.50 -1.51% Copper 2.08 -1.40% Silver 16.00 -1.65% Natural Gas 2.71 +1.61% Russell 2000 1,154.79 +0.38% VIX 14.19 +8.16% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4486 +0.04% USD/JPY 110.7115 -0.03%

The Federal Reserve Faces Insolvency As It Attempts Impossibile Rate Hikes

As has been posited here on Money Daily and elsewhere, the Federal Reserve is facing a severe solvency crisis, due primarily to the bank bailouts from 2008-09.

In a headline story on - of all places - Yahoo! Finance, the Fed faces a real, dangerous situation if and when they try to normalize rates - something many economists say is nearly impossible to do without destroying the entire monetary system of the United States, and, ostensibly, the world.

The article fleshes out how US taxpayers could be on the hook for the Fed's bad debts, stemming from overpayment on mortgage and treasury note, bills and bonds in years past, specifically during the various QE sessions from 2009-2014.

It's long been held that the Fed was buying bad mortgage notes and bonds at par, when the true value of these slips of counterfeit are more than 30-70% lower. This effectively puts the Fed itself in a condition known to many in the world of finance as either insolvent or bankrupt.

Insolvent is the operative term here, since there is no functioning body by which the Fed can go to for a reorganization or liquidation, as do businesses or individuals in bankruptcy.

The solution would be to dissolve the Federal Reserve, extinguish all debts (which is anything numerated in US dollars), and have the US government - as is required by the constitution - issue a new currency, with gold and/or silver as backing, as opposed to the "full faith and credit" backing to which Americans have become accustomed.

This, as the presidential race looks to be one which a certain maverick billionaire, Donald J. Trump, has a solid chance of winning, could be the beginning of the end to the financial repression initiated by the Fed and its member banks and a start toward a return to honest money.

Capping off the week was a speech by Fed Chair Janet Yellen, characterized by the media as being "hawkish" for a rate hike in June or July.

Apparently, investors either disagreed or threw caution to the wind in the face of the three-day Memorial Day weekend, boosting stocks late in the session, ending what was a banner week for US stocks, especially the high-leverage, high-flying NASDAQ.

On the week:
Dow: +372.28 (+2.13%)
S&P 500: +46.74 (+2.28%)
NASDAQ: +163.95 (+3.44%)

For the day:
S&P 500: 2,099.06, +8.96 (0.43%)
Dow: 17,873.22, +44.93 (0.25%)
NASDAQ: 4,933.50, +31.74 (0.65%)

Crude Oil 49.42 -0.12% Gold 1,213.20 -0.78% EUR/USD 1.1114 -0.71% 10-Yr Bond 1.85 +1.54% Corn 412.25 +0.98% Copper 2.11 +0.38% Silver 16.21 -0.81% Natural Gas 2.16 +0.65% Russell 2000 1,150.45 +0.94% VIX 13.08 -2.61% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4613 -0.37% USD/JPY 110.3725 +0.56%