Stocks Continue Downward Spiral Second Straight Week

With stocks rallying on Friday, the disastrous second straight week of declines came to a relieving finish for equity longs, but not without significant teeth-gnashing through the tortuous five trading days.

The Dow and S&P 500 each entered correction territory on Thursday, as the blue chip index posted its second-largest single-day point decline. With the focus on the 10% down mark, Friday's gains may serve only as a temporary salve to many frayed nerves.

With the Dow Industrials still down nearly 2000 points in just the first seven trading days of February it's going to take quite an effort to regain all-time highs. The major indices peaked simultaneously in late January, but it's been all downhill since then, and the probable causes for such a shakeout are still in effect, if not even more exacerbated in the case of bond yields.

Globally, outflows from equity funds set a record, as investors pulled $30.6 billion out in the week through Wednesday, according to global fund tracker EPFR.

Breaking down those flows, the U.S. dominated with a record $33 billion in equity redemptions, while Europe saw $3.3 billion exit, the largest in 79 weeks. Japan saw the strongest equity inflows in 65 weeks at $2.4 billion, while $2.4 billion flowed into emerging markets, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Weekly declines in US markets were uniform, as the four major indices were all lower by at least five percent, led by the Dow, at 5.21%.

The 10-year-note closed out the week at 2.83%, a level seen promoting a massive shift from stocks to bonds and risk to relative safety. Crude oil slipped to its lowest level of the year, finishing off Friday at $59.05. Though not directly related to the equity selloff, crude prices have been elevated for the past two months until they were devastated by a massive increase in supply, reported this week.

Precious metals prices were muted, falling along with stocks, bonds and nearly every other asset class.

Trickling out from the corners of mouths were murmurings of getting long art, transportation, real estate and anything tangible.

Obviously, the correction is not over, having barely dipped a toe into the -10% water. It would not be unusual to see stocks bounce early next week and possibly beyond, though a retest of the prior lows is all but inevitable.

While caution had been thrown to the wind all of last year and through January of this year, consensus sentiment has changed dramatically and markets are likely to remain unstable until volatility subsides. That may not happen for some time, since the past nine years of bank-and-buyback-induced stock profits have been characterized by extremely low levels of volatility.

The past two weeks have been witness to a fundamental change in many regards. Extreme greed turned to a healthy level of fear in just a few days.

Rising rates and the prospect of profligate spending at the federal level point to further declines in the equity complex.

Dow Jones Industrial Average February Scorecard:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
2/1/18	26,186.71	+37.32	+37.32
2/2/18	25,520.96	-665.75	-628.43
2/5/18	24,345.75	-1,175.21	-1,803.64
2/6/18	24,912.77	+567.02	-1,236.62
2/7/18	24,893.35	-19.42	-1,256.04
2/8/18	23,860.46	-1,032.89	-2288.93
2/9/18	24,190.90	+330.44	-1958.49

At the Close, Friday, February 9, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 24,190.90, +330.44 (+1.38%)
NASDAQ: 6,874.49, +97.33 (+1.44%)
S&P 500: 2,619.55, +38.55 (+1.49%)
NYSE Composite: 12,405.82, +135.17 (+1.10%)

For the Week:
Dow: -1330.06 (-5.21%)
NASDAQ: -366.46 (-5.06%)
S&P 500: -142.58 (-5.16%)
NYSE Composite: -679.53 (-5.19%)

The Gartman File (It's about time this fraud was exposed)

Well, after publicly calling out Dennis Gartman, celebrity investment advisor and frequent guest on CNBC, and trying to sign up for his newsletter (thegartmanletter.com), Money Daily editor Fearless Rick has received no response.

Now, maybe it's because the people at The Gartman Letter are really, really busy, tracking stocks and currencies and ETFs and what not, though that's a serious doubt. It would make more sense to believe that Gartman is indeed lying - to his subscribers, primarily - about his year-to-date (as of March 10) performance of 12.3% and outperforming the S&P by 14%, especially after digging into Mr. Dennis Gartman's history.

On March 29, 2016Gartman "admits" that he's up 8.2%.

At one time, Gartman was pegged to manage an ETF for Horizons, a Canadian-based investment firm with various funds and ETFs under management. Specifically, the fund was known as the Horizons AlphaPro Gartman ETF, which was founded in March 2009 (perfect timing, being that was the market bottom), and went out of business four years later, on March 22, 2013.

Gartman, expert trader and analyst he claims to be, managed to lose money for the ETF and its clients while the S&P was up something on the order of 132% (from about 670 to roughly 1550).

Here's an article from the UK's Guardian (note: no mention of this on CNBC or any other US news media), published just before the AlphaPro Gartman ETF closed its doors at 7.90 per share, after opening four years earlier at $10.00.

But the Gartman ETF, named after advisor Dennis Gartman, ubiquitous author of the Gartman Letter, an investment advisory, couldn’t harness the benefits of its fortunate timing. The fund went public at $10 a share. Those same shares now fetch around $7.90.

More astonishing is that this closed-end fund actually saw the equivalent of massive redemptions. That’s unheard of in the closed-end world. With the asset base, and therefore fees, down sharply, it’s no surprise that Horizons Alphapro has decided to shut the fund down next month.

Here's an earlier article on Seeking Alpha, (June 23, 2011) that notes the fund had done OK for some time, but as of the article's writing, was down 7.7%.

Here is a rather humorous note from Peter Grandich, on Gartman's performance with a chart comparing his fund to the price of gold.

Nowhere to be found on any of Mr. Gartman's various postings and appearances are mention of his Hedge Fund, formed in August of 2009, as the River Crescent Fund (apparently named for the street on which he lives and likely does business from, in Suffolk, Virginia). At the time, Gartman was looking to raise the modest sum of $200 million from investors, and, according to his SEC filings, would accept a minimum of $5 million for starters.

Apparently, anybody with five million bucks didn't need Gartman's advice, because since its inception, there's been no news, no investments, no nothing, except for a lonely SEC filing. That's probably a good thing for most investors.

So, what does Gartman manage today, after failing miserably during one of the great bull markets of all time? According to sources, he manages his own retirement fund. And that's the one he claims is up 12.3% on the year, while the stock market was beaten down severely in January and early February, and gyrating in negative territory for the better part of the past month.

Essentially, from March 2009 through March 2013, Gartman should have had worn disclaimers every time he appeared on CNBC. whether he was or not is a question for the way-back machine. Certainly, there are clips from that time period and Money Daily will investigate further. Oddly enough, no mention is made of Gartman's failure with the AlphaPro Gartman EFT on his official CNBC biography.

Here's a particularly bad call, when Gartman said he was getting out of stocks in August of 2012, just prior to the Fed's launch of QE3, a mammoth stimulus, less than a month later.

Also, as far as can be discerned, Mr. Dennis Gartman is neither a registered equity trader, a member of FINRA, nor a futures trader (since 2005). Nor is Mr. Gartman a registered investment advisor.

The only conclusions one can reasonably assume is that Dennis Gartman, being well past his prime, is living off the $50 to $100 per day he makes appearing on CNBC and whatever meager earnings he derives from his newsletter.

Speaking of his newsletter - which I have never seen and doubt ever will as my request on his website has not elicited so much as a response - here are a few reviews. They're generally unflattering, again, begging the question as to why the clownish Gartman is even on CNBC at all.

Updating on April 21, 2016, Gartman says he likes Alcoa (AA) and Gold in Yen or Euro terms. Naturally, as soon as he had finished his on-air mouthings, gold fell $20... in US dollar terms, of course. As for the Alcoa call, it's a pretty safe one, since AA has been as high as 17.75 (November, 2014) and, recently, down to a multi-year low in January of 6.12 (intra-day). Calling it a buy around $10 a share isn't exactly rocket science. Gartman may actually have a winner here, but it won't be much of one.

UPDATE: Gartman has gone from bearish (in light of a face-ripping 200-point rally on the Dow, May 24) to bullish in 24 hours. This is the typical Gartman flip-flop and more evidence that he's a complete buffoon and plays with imaginary money.

What a clod!

Dude, Where's My Retirement Pension?

Stocks took another punch to the gut on Thursday, extending the February losses on all global indices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average officially (-10%) entered correction phase.

The NASDAQ is within a hair of a 10% drop, from 7,505.77 to 6,777.16. 6755.19 is the magic number in this case.

On the S&P 500, the January 26 top of 2,872.87 is far away from the close into correction territory (at 2585.87), achieved in today's session with a triple-digit loss.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average Scoreboard looks like this:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
2/1/18	26,186.71	+37.32	+37.32
2/2/18	25,520.96	-665.75	-628.43
2/5/18	24,345.75	-1,175.21	-1,803.64
2/6/18	24,912.77	+567.02	-1,236.62
2/7/18	24,893.35	-19.42	-1,256.04
2/8/18	23,860.46	-1,032.89	-2,288.93

That's in just six trading sessions, people. All the major averages are down for the year, but, hey, it's only February. Plenty of time to boost those profits.

This is only the beginning of a collapse that may be unprecedented. Considering the adherence to antiquated Keynesian economic theories spoon-fed to the masses, the unwinding will be a farce, fed by propagandists, though it's effects will be somewhat permanent on the financial status of almost everybody.

Precious metals were among the few gainers on the day.

At the Close, Thursday, February 8, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 23,860.46, -1,032.89 (-4.15%)
NASDAQ: 6,777.16, -274.82 (-3.90%)
S&P 500: 2,581.00, -100.66 (-3.75%)
NYSE Composite: 12,270.65, -416.53 (-3.28%)

How is Your Money Doing? Here's the February Dow Scoreboard, Day 5

In the sports world, all manner of statistics and scenarios are routinely trotted out in attempts to reinforce how one team or player is better than another. All of this analysis is done every day on TV and radio talk shows, but the in the final analysis, as so perfectly expressed by the king of sports talk radio, Jim Rome, is "scoreboard," as in, who won the game, no matter the stats.

The same kind of metric can easily be applied to stocks and investments, as it no doubt should be. Thus, there's no need for analysis, no need for bald-headed, econo-speak commentators, no need for inverse correlations, causations, or extrapolations. All that matter can be found in the daily closing prices for individual stocks, or for individual stock indices, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the measure by which everybody measures success.

Over the past four trading sessions, there's been more than sufficient ammunition for all kinds of wild speculation and analysis of what happened and why, and there may be a thousand reasons why the Dow and other indices were slaughtered last Friday and again this Monday. The more simplistic answers appear in the comeback sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, which failed to recoup all of the losses. Thus, it's all in the scoreboard, i.e., the daily closes on the Dow. Nothing more, nothing less. No analysis necessary. You either won or you lost.

Let's just track the Dow through the month of February and see how well those precious stocks are doing.

Here are the only numbers that matter:

Dow Jones Industrial Average dates, closing prices, gains or losses:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
2/1/18	26,186.71	+37.32	+37.32
2/2/18	25,520.96	-665.75	-628.43
2/5/18	24,345.75	-1,175.21	-1,803.64
2/6/18	24,912.77	+567.02	-1,236.62
2/7/18	24,893.35	-19.42	-1,256.04

So, as can clearly be seen, even adding in the smallish gain on Feb. 1, the Dow is down a massive amount. The contention here at Money Daily is that there has been a sea change in the market. Not only is a correction in the works (-10%), but a bear market (-20%) is quickly developing. We'll keep tracking so you at home can keep score on your "investments."

At the Close, Wednesday, February 7, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average, 24,893.35, -19.42 (-0.08%)
NASDAQ: 7,051.98, -63.90 (-0.90%)
S&P 500: 2,681.65, -13.49 (-0.50%)
NYSE Composite: 12,714.83, -30.62 (-0.24%)

Dow's Dramatic Comeback 4th-Best in History

That was something to behold.

Not only did the Dow open down a whopping 500 points, but it battled back and forth across the unchanged line - as did the other major indices - until finally launching itself into a hyperbolic ascent in the final hour of the session.

While the Dow's rise was the 4th-biggest point gain in its long history, there's still work to be done. Just to get back what it lost last Friday and Monday of this week will take two more days of equal heavy lifting, something that is unlikely unless one lives on the planet Utopia, where unicorns spit skittles and money grows on trees.

Even more daunting may be the return to all-time highs (26,616.71), a mere 1,700+ points away. It could happen. It very well may happen. However, if it does, stocks will once again be more expensive than ever before (they are still).

The market action over the past week has been a warm-up, conditioning the masses for more carnage to commence and shaking out the weak - or wise - hands. Those who cannot allocate by themselves (like people with 401ks or government retirement plans) will be stuck with whatever the fund managers deem prudent. Call them bag-holders.

The swift and the wise are playing the ups-and-downs, though that was quite the challenge in today's session. Volatility has returned and it should be pointed out that some of the greatest one-day gains (in fact, the two largest occurred in the fall of 2008) happened in bear markets.

The fun has just begun.

At the Close, Tuesday, January 6, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 24,912.77, +567.02 (+2.33%)
NASDAQ: 7,115.88, +148.36 (+2.13%)
S&P 500: 2,695.14, +46.20 (+1.74%)
NYSE Composite: 12,745.45, +172.53 (+1.37%)