Soon there will be hope

Waiting.... Waiting.... Waiting.... Waiting....
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - hear my song
Waiting for you to - come along
Waiting for you to - tell me what went wrong
This is the strangest life I've ever known.
- Waiting for the Sun (The Doors, 1968)

This is the life of an investor.

We waited for QE3 before and it ended up to be a Twist.
We waited for Super Mario Draghi to put the Germany's money where his mouth was after pledging to "do whatever it takes."
We waited for Jackson Hole.
And now we wait for QE3 again at this week's Fed meeting.

We waited for the end of summer because every day in late August is a dog day afternoon.
Then Labor Day came and went and we waited for volume to return.
We still wait to see if Europe will survive.

For most of this country, we wait to see which side of the same coin will become President. 

And for those of us who still think free, unencumbered markets still work, we are waiting for central banks to just stop it.

I think that after Thursday, there is really only one wait left - the election. How happy am I that I do not live i a  battleground state where I would have to set my DVR on "kill" to zap the barrage of negative political ads coming my way.

The Fed will be done, even if they say QE3 will not kick in for months. There will be nothing left to even attempt. And the country will not want it anyway.

I am tired of waiting but after Thursday I will shift my outlook from waiting for the next of the centipedes shoes to drop to watching as rational analysis, be it technical or otherwise, starts to make a comeback.  Hang in there, folks. This nightmare will soon be over.

Where is Thumbkin?

Where is retail?
Where is retail?
Here I am
Here I am
Where were you this summer?
Why are you not trading?
I'm buying bonds
Buying bonds.
- With no apologies to anyone

Well, it was either that or a bastardization of Maggie May by Rod Stewart. You know, it's late September and I really should be back at my trading desk.

Normally, the post Labor Day week releases the hounds. Pent up demand (or supply) us unleashed and things start to move again. Volume expand and away we go.

Not this year.  We are now two days into the week and nobody is still away stretching this into a two week vacation. NYSE volume is still below average and that average has been falling throughout the 2009-2012 bull market. In other words, it stinks.

Last year was the same deal. It took more than a week for things to perk up. You have to go back to 2009 to see a clear change from low volume to higher volume the day after Labor Day.

This is the age of QE. I do not blame the disruption caused by the slo-mo crash of 2008 because there is now four years of healing in place. Markets stabilize faster than that.

Note I am not talking about price. That is part of the age of QE. I am talking about the function of the market to allocate capital, reflect the mood of the public vis a vis the economy and reward those who take successful risks.

No, this is the age of QE. The public calls the market a casino. Institutions call it free money courtesy of the taxpayer. And analysts cannot call it at all. Why should they be able to do so? Forget discounted cash flows. Forget momentum and sentiment. Forget propeller head algorithms.

Nothing matters in the age of QE - except will he or won't he? Will Ben print? Will Super Mario save the Eurozone by, you guessed it, printing.