Stocks Pop, Drop, End Flat Before Jobs Friday

It is probably the dumbest thing going in the markets - besides, perhaps, waiting on FOMC decisions - but the monthly "Jobs Friday" fiasco is upon us once again, as breathless investors await one more dicey number form the government.

Prior to the market open on Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release its April Non-Farm Payroll figure, and by that traders will have access to vital information needed to access the health of the economy and trade stocks.

except for the fact that the numbers are largely a joke, have been proven to be such, and are not of importance to anybody in particular. They offer a rather fuzzy view of the employment conditions in the United States, if one is even inclined to believe them.

So, stocks went up, came down and finished just about where they started the day, with the Dow up, the S&P and NASDAQ ever so slightly to the downside.

Idiots On Parade:
S&P 500: 2,050.63, -0.49 (0.02%)
Dow: 17,660.71, +9.45 (0.05%)
NASDAQ: 4,717.09, -8.55 (0.18%)

Crude Oil 44.51 +1.67% Gold 1,279.60 +0.41% EUR/USD 1.1403 0.00% 10-Yr Bond 1.75 -2.07% Corn 373.75 -0.80% Copper 2.14 -1.92% Silver 17.38 +0.43% Natural Gas 2.08 -2.80% Russell 2000 1,107.95 -0.47% VIX 15.91 -0.87% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4485 +0.02% USD/JPY 107.2700 -0.01%

A note on the blatant unfairness within the judicial system:

The Arbitration Association of America, which handles the majority of arbitration cases, charges $200 for an initial filing fee, not counting fees incurred by consumers who hire attorneys. The CFPB argues that fees like this have a cooling effect on potential claimants. Over the two-year period between 2010 and 2011, the CFPB found only 25 cases were filed by consumers with claims for under $1,000. For every dollar claimed, consumers won an average of 12% of the original claim in relief. Only 9% of consumers who took on financial institutions received any relief at all. In contrast, 93% of claims filed against consumers by financial institutions came out in the institution’s favor.

ADP Jobs Miss; Stocks Lower; Markets Appear Exhausted

The best analyst assumptions on where markets might be heading are probably not going to impress anybody this year. As usual, the best and brightest of Wall Street had rosy calculations heading into the new year and so far none of them are anywhere close to the reality of 2015.

That reality has the Dow and S&P clinging to one to two percent gains for the year, with the NASDAQ roughly six percent underwater.

This morning's miss in the ADP privater jobs report for April set a sullen tone for equities, having already been battered on Tuesday. The middle of the week turned out to be no better, sending stocks further into the red.

ADP's report of 156,00 new jobs in April was well below the average estimate of 193,000, and was the lowest number since March of 2013. The ADP report sets the stage for the BLS April non-farm jobs report, due out Friday.

Stocks have run out of gas, this current bull market having become the second longest in history a few days back, but the central banks haven't run out of money to print out of thin air, a specialty that also is apparently running its course and running the global economy into the ground.

With summer heading its way and the outlook for a Fed tightening looking more and more dubious for June or even July, investors are beginning to take money off the table and head into cash or other, more stable assets, particularly bonds, art, gold, silver and oil.

For the most part, equities are overpriced and volumes have been thin. A serious correction could occur within days or weeks. With nothing but bad news and data hitting the street and foreign markets on a regular basis, the casino is quickly running out of chips as the players cash in and head out of town.

S&P 500: 2,051.12, -12.25 (0.59%)
Dow: 17,651.26, -99.65 (0.56%)
NASDAQ: 4,725.64, -37.58 (0.79%)

Crude Oil 44.05 +0.92% Gold 1,281.60 +0.56% EUR/USD 1.1487 +0.01% 10-Yr Bond 1.78 -0.89% Corn 377.75 -0.53% Copper 2.18 -0.14% Silver 17.42 +0.69% Natural Gas 2.14 +2.83% Russell 2000 1,113.13 -0.77% VIX 16.05 +2.88% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4501 +0.02% USD/JPY 107.0170 +0.02%

Stocks, Oil Lower As Dollar Rebound Pushes Bond Price; Silver Suffers

The past few weeks haven't been very kind to the almighty greenback, but today was a respite from some concerted selling, sending stocks and oil lower.

While that scenario makes perfect sense for stocks and commodities in general, it sure doesn't help when the master manipulators manage to gang up on the one asset underpinning everything... not gold, silver.

Massive silver price suppression over the past 15 years has pushed the coin of common men to unheard of ratios in comparison to gold, and today was textbook slamming against the metal of the working man. While the absurdity of the 70:1 and higher silver to gold ratio has been discussed here in the past - and elsewhere, by more astute students of real money, it bears repeating, and repeating, until the price suppression stops completely.

That may be more of a pipe dream than winning the lottery, yet it is the one eventuality that must come to pass if the rule of central bankers and their idiotic QE and NIRP policies are ever to end and the financial universe is to regain some semblance of real markets and real prices, as opposed to the obviously fraudulent ones foisted upon the world by central bankers, especially those entertained by the US Federal Reserve.

With unlimited power to create money out of thin air, there is no market the master bankers cannot control, so it is easy to assume that they can absolutely pollute and disintegrate all price discovery mechanisms when it comes to silver, one of the smallest markets (in dollar terms, by their wicked design) of all.

But, to the guy or gal who is looking to keep wealth out of the corrupted central banking system and regain some sanity in his or her financial affairs, silver is a bottom holding, a base unit of measure, and insurance against what appears to be an advancing monetary apocalypse.

A one ounce bar of silver can still be had for under $20 US, and that little sliver of metallic hope may be all that's left between survival and tortuous, tyrannical totalitarianism.

As for stocks, they are but pieces of paper promises, and highly overrated as investment instruments. Compaies come and go, nations rise and fall, but silver will remain

S&P 500: 2,063.37, -18.06 (0.87%)
Dow: 17,750.91, -140.25 (0.78%)
NASDAQ: 4,763.22, -54.37 (1.13%)

Crude Oil 43.90 -1.97% Gold 1,288.20 -0.59% EUR/USD 1.1497 -0.26% 10-Yr Bond 1.80 -3.49% Corn 379.00 -3.25% Copper 2.22 -2.16% Silver 17.46 -1.26% Natural Gas 2.08 +2.01% Russell 2000 1,121.76 -1.68% VIX 15.60 +6.27% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4536 -0.88% USD/JPY 107.1130 +0.61%

All-Time Highs Likely Not Attainable, Nor Sustainable

Let's take a stroll down memory lane.

It's a short stroll, to just over a year ago, when the Dow, S&P and NASDAQ each made all-time highs.

The dates, and the levels are shown below:

S&P 500: 2134.28 (intra-day); 2130.82 (close), May 21, 2015 (both)
Dow Jones Industrials: 18,351.36 (intra-day); 18,312.39 (close), May 19, 2015 (both)
NASDAQ: 5164.36 (intra-day, June 24, 2015); 5160.09 (close, June 23, 2015)

For the first trading day of May, the forward move was largely based on nothing other than bad economic data (manufacturing output is at its lowest level since 2009), other than the "good" news that Atlantic City avoided defaulting on a $1.8 million bond obligation and possible bankruptcy.

When the Jersey shore city announced they were making good on their scheduled payment to creditors - right around noon - that was enough for the markets to get off the proverbial flat-line and go diagonal the rest of the session.

Stocks ended the day with solid gains, erasing nearly half the losses from the prior week, putting some skepticism to the time-worn "sell in May and go away" adage.

Anyone believing that the US averages are going to meet or exceed the all-time highs from one year ago are betting against the odds simply because the May through October time frame historically offers the lowest returns of any six-month period, based on data from 1928 to the present. [See chart at right]

Not only that, but the continued creep of deteriorating business conditions presages a continuation of the slow growth that's been typical for the past seven-plus years at best or a slide into outright recession, at worst. Recall that the first estimate of first quarter GDP was a disappointing 0.5%, which is pretty darn close to going backwards.

Thus, with the numbers above as targets, it is clear that the indices would have to move more than two percent between May and October - and sustain those levels - in order to attain and hold new all-time highs, an unlikely event.

For hard-core stock investors, this is a cold truth, one which promises to inflict a high degree of pain and loss for those who play against the odds.

Monday's Millings:
S&P 500: 2,081.43, +16.13 (0.78%)
Dow: 17,891.16, +117.52 (0.66%)
NASDAQ: 4,817.59, +42.24 (0.88%)

Crude Oil 44.77 -2.50% Gold 1,293.00 +0.19% EUR/USD 1.1533 +0.62% 10-Yr Bond 1.8650 +2.53% Corn 390.00 -0.45% Copper 2.26 -0.90% Silver 17.57 -1.40% Natural Gas 2.04 -6.57% Russell 2000 1,140.92 +0.89% VIX 14.68 -6.50% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4674 +0.56% USD/JPY 106.3950 +0.08%

Rough Week For Stocks; Gold, Silver Outperform Everything

A frantic, algo-churning, late-day rally brought the US averages back to respectability, but stocks ended the week - and the month of April (no window dressing) - on a sour note Friday, with all the averages losing, but especially the NASDAQ, down more than 2.5% on the week.

The week's events included an ostensibly neutral FOMC policy meeting midweek, at which the Fed kept rates at their unusually-accomodative level, prompting speculation that their next meeting (June) might indeed move the federal funds rate from its current level of 0.25-0.50, another 25 basis points higher, to 0.50 to 0.75.

With credibility becoming more and more of an issue for central bankers globally, the rationale for another rate hike is obvious, though the wisdom of one would be suspect. A rise in rates would likely trigger another waterfall event in equities, something which the Fed wishes to avoid with all due intent.

However, with CPI running below their desired level of 2.0% and news Friday that first quarter GDP was an anemic 0.5%, barely above recession level, the assorted Ph.d. crowd in Washington seems trapped once more.

Looking ahead, the big number for the week will be Friday, when non-farm payrolls for April are released prior to the market open. In the interim, more companies will be reporting first quarter results, which have been moribund for the most part.

If trends continue at the current pace and in the same direction, there would be almost no reason for the Fed to raise rates in June, excepting that the almighty dollar may be coming under further pressure. The unwind of the USD/JPY pair carry trade is putting downward pressure on the dollar and doesn't appear to be abating.

If there was one bright spot for the manipulators-in-charge, it was in the oil patch, with WTI crude trading at multiple-month highs. With an enormous glut still affecting worldwide prices coupled with the refusal of major producers to slow their production speaks volumes to the lack of democracy in what should be a strict supply-demand market. Prices have nearly doubled since touching down in the $26 range earlier in the year, a move that may prove problematic and unsustainable.

More challenges to the status quo will appear this week and beyond, as there is almost nobody who believes in the tortured figures the BLS produces for jobs. Any uptick in the unemployment rate will be a shock and a body blow to the Fed's plans, with the potential not only of a complete stoppage rate increase talk, but a potential reversal and the specter of NIRP (negative interest rate policy), the same that has swept Japan and Europe to - and possibly over - the edge of the monetary cliff.

Meanwhile, the herd appears to be turning to investments without counter-party risk and no interest: gold and silver, which don't pay dividends but also do not require storage by a bank (unless in enormous quantity). It certainly seems that the age of fiat money is wobbling badly.

For the week:
Dow: -229.97 (1.28%)
S&P 500: -26.27 (1.26%)
NASDAQ: -130.87 (2.67%)

Friday's (un)Funnies:
S&P 500: 2,065.30, -10.51 (0.51%)
Dow: 17,773.64, -57.12 (0.32%)
NASDAQ: 4,775.36, -29.93 (0.62%)

Crude Oil 45.99 -0.09% Gold 1,296.30 +2.36% EUR/USD 1.1452 +0.88% 10-Yr Bond 1.82 -1.03% Corn 391.50 +0.06% Copper 2.28 +2.04% Silver 17.88 +1.63% Natural Gas 2.14 +3.03% Russell 2000 1,130.84 -0.84% VIX 15.72 +3.29% BATS 1000 20,677.17 0.00% GBP/USD 1.4610 +0.04% USD/JPY 106.3900 -1.58%