A follow up to "too bullish"

We've had a lot of discussion in Quick Takes Pro about the low volume rally and even it if is indeed low volume. We found this on the blogosphere so read it with a grain of salt. There is an element of conspiracy in there.
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Furthermore, if anyone was merely looking at the trading action in regular hours, one would think there was absolutely no profit made since early September. The reason for that: all the upside since September 14th has come exclusively from afterhours action.

Every single day, minimal volume pushes the futures index higher. Good news, bad news, it don’t matter to the Goldman S&P and Russell 1000 futures desk: they just lift every micro offer, giving the impression that the market is unstoppable, often leapfrogging each other as the latest viagra’ed GDP or unemployment rumor is spread.

Come morning, it is time for the HFT (high frequency trading) brigade to come in and scalp their
trillions of pennies while leaving the market unchanged, then at 4pm handing it off again to leveraged futures manipulation and dark pools. In a nutshell, this is the secret of the past quarter’s phenomenal market performance.

- Peter Cooper, financial journalist

too bullish

The headline here is intentionally lower case as in a whisper. I am tired of finding bearish evidence in the face of a market that just goes up no matter what. But here goes. I found this at the Pragmatic Capitalist site.

As charts below from the ICI illustrates, portfolio managers have been so nervous to miss any up-moves that they have run down their cash holdings to 3.6% of assets from nearly 6% a year ago — the largest decline in 19 years. Equity cash ratios are back to where they were in September 2007, just as the stock market was hitting its peak.

My own retirement account is half cash.

A true solution to the banking crisis

From Non-Sequiter by Wiley Miller.

http://imgsrv.gocomics.com/dim/?fh=15ff7fffd1b2be0eb0bceff4b69175e5

I'd like to jusst link the picture in here but it is not exactly ethical or even legal.

Post of a post

From a chat room:

Arguing persuasively for an immediate and substantial decline are the facts that my main trading account crossed a round number today and that today feels strongly like an all-clear day to me.
- J Bollinger

Everything does seem to line up today, doesn't it? Greece is happy not to get a bailout from Germany. Employment is excellent (on a relative basis, of course). Bears look like fools. Resistance levels smashed.

Why must I be a teenager in love (with the stock market)?

It's a Wonderful World!!!!

Yes, ladies and gents, the VIX is under 18 and only 9.7% of the population is out of work!

Small cap stocks are at new recovery highs and the Dow is breaking through resistance! Interest rates are still sooo low and retail sales are hot, hot, hot!

I think I just threw up in my mouth. Yes, all of that is true but those happy exclamation points are making we woozy. Are things really that good? Well, stock market investors think so. I better tell my wife she can quit her job and make me a sandwich.

The chart of the VIX above shows it at "support" going back to the 2008 fun years. Apparently, all is forgiven.

While I cannot deny the market's trend and resilience, I just do not see how any analysis - technical or fundamental - justifies the feelings of secular bull market.

It's a living

Ask a sewer worker (Ed Norton?) about his job and he says it is full of, well, you know. But, it's honest work. That's not how I feel on Wall Street when I see juxtaposed headlines like this:

• Optimism returns to supermarket aisle
• Grocer Safeway shelves recent pessimism

These two were stacked just like this on MarketWatch. So, optimism returns but Safeway is just less pessimistic. At least I get the "job is full of, you know," feeling.

Do we buy grocer stocks? Of should we just rush out and buy food since demand is coming and we don't want to pay high prices?

How about that chart of Safeway?

Looks to me that the market restored optimism back in October when it smoked through its 200-day average. Now? How about this weekly chart?

Anybody hungry?

Stuff I need to say

1 - Is every politician corrupt? Maybe I am overly sensitive since my last governor was a hooker hound, my current governor is just plain corrupt and a congressman close to my district is a tenured piece of corruption who thinks a temporary resignation from his committee is absolution.

Then in a state close by, someone who has no experience and is shown getting a piledriver by a giant hunk of wrestling beef is going to try to buy an election from a guy who is goofy as all get out.

I say term limits of one term. That way, nobody has any incentive to look good instead of being good.

2 - Earthquakes. Haiti, Chile and now Taiwan? Is the Earth trying to tell us something? Yes, I know quakes happen all the time but these are monsters. I saw Bill Nye the science guy on the tube the other day explaining how the Chile quake was so big it actually slowed down the rotation of the Earth. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2010/03/02/velshi.bill.nye.intv.cnn.

Of course, a dictatorial nut job in the south says the USA's is to blame because we have a device to do it. You want a portfolio implication? He sits on a lot of oil.

3 - Greece! Let me get this straight - they are issuing 10-year government bonds to raise money for a sovereign debt crisis? The interest rate better be 25% payable in gold.

I love gold!
- Mike Meyers as Goldmember (that's a keepa!)