Like most MSM articles tonight’s offering should be consumed with that familiar little ditty, ‘Listen to the bull shit fly!’ Running through your head.
The original article has scrolled off the list so you’ll just have to take my (less than credible) word for it that consumer confidence is up…because they say it is! That’s all the ‘proof’ you’re given.
Just read the following article and note that the most prevalent sentiment expressed is ‘worried’…um, I dunno about you but the last time I checked ‘worried’ wasn’t synonymous with ‘confident’.
But don’t let this little ‘definition problem’ concern you, good citizen, Wall Street proceeded to use this (mis-information) as an opportunity to make the already rich, richer! (Although the markets haven’t closed yet so I may have to amend this later.)
It is now ten minutes before the end of trading and the markets have indeed made a liar out of me. At ten minutes to 4:00 the Dow is minus a single point, down 80 points from today’s high, the S&P is down 3 points and the Nasdaq is down 4. I’ll hold off and check back after the market closes for the ‘final’ number. As we’ve seen before, a lot can happen in the final five minutes.
Okay, that didn’t take long now did it? The S&P closed at minus 3 points and the Dow closed at minus 2.5 points and the Nasdaq closed at minus 7 points! Or three points lower than it was just ten minutes ago!
Left to our imagination is ‘why’? Today was looking like a ‘carbon copy’ of yesterday, when the markets ‘snapped’ a 3 day losing streak. The rest of the world bled from the eye-sockets for most of the day, with Asian markets closing in negative territory. Did the spin doctors on Wall Street decide to fall back because the only ‘positive news’ today was fairly negative?
As we can observe from the end of tonight’s offering, DuPont is up and so is Traveler’s Insurance…but they aren’t ‘the whole economy’ by any stretch of the imagination. Good performance by two companies is not ‘proof’ of an economic recovery regardless of how optimistic Wall Street cheerleaders are.
[/rant off]
Let us proceed with tonight’s offering.
New Report Gives Wall Street a Bit of Confidence
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 26, 2010
Wall Street received a shot of confidence on Tuesday. [and still closed in negative territory!]
Shares reversed an early slide on Tuesday, after an increase in consumer confidence lifted hopes for an economic rebound.
The Conference Board said that its index of consumer confidence rose to 55.9 in January from 53.6 in December. It is the third consecutive increase and the highest level in more than a year. [Which means what, exactly?]
In afternoon trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was 74.29 points, or 0.72 percent, higher. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was 5.14 points higher, and the Nasdaq up 13.16 points or 0.60 percent. [Hmmn, the 80 I cite earlier was hit prior to noon time, although the markets did start off in negative territory at the outset.]
Once again, the speed of the economic recovery was an issue. The latest reports showed Britain emerging from recession at a snail’s pace and investors worried about Japan’s debt load and further lending curbs in China. The step in China was aimed at keeping that country’s economy from overheating but investors are concerned it could destabilize a global recovery. [If China’s reported activity isn’t completely fictional, ALL of their customers are ‘on their ass’ (meaning they have no money.) Restocking Western retail establishments accomplishes what, precisely? What good is ‘window dressing’ or ‘going through the motions’?]
In the United States, a closely watched index showed that home prices rose nationally for the sixth consecutive month in November. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index inched up 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted reading of 145.49. [So what do the ‘fucking liars’ make of the lowest level of home sales registered in over 40 years last month? Was this due to prices being too high?]
European shares were mixed after Asian markets declined. In London, the FTSE 100 index was flat, while the DAX in Frankfurt gained 35.92 points, or 0.61 percent. The CAC-40 in Paris was 13.96 points, or 0.37 percent, lower. [What they aren’t telling you here is the European indexes spent most of the day in negative territory and didn’t swing over to the positive side until after US markets posted gains…]
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average retreated 187.41 points, or 1.8 percent, to 10,325.28. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 489.22 points, or 2.4 percent, to 20,109.33 and Taiwan’s index plunged 3.5 percent.
Concerns about the recovery started in China after reports that China’s banks have had their reserve requirements increased again. Following those reports, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell 75.02 points, or 2.4 percent, to 3,019.39, its lowest since late October.
“Talk that China may accelerate the pace of monetary tightening shook the markets,” said Jane Foley, research director at Forex.com.
Investors are particularly worried about policy changes in China as the country’s growth helped limit the impact of the global recession over the last year — figures last week showed that China’s economy grew an eye-catching 10.7 percent in the final three months of the year from the year before. [Sadly, Chinese ‘economic statistics’ are less reliable than those coming out of the US…and that’s saying something!]
The worry is that tighter monetary policy in China to check inflationary pressures could kill off the nascent economic recovery around the world.
And the economic data around the world suggests that the recovery is not on a sure footing. [Why do you suppose they are admitting that all of a sudden?]
Figures Tuesday showed that Britain emerged from recession in the last three months of 2009 — after six consecutive quarters of falling output — but only at a quarterly rate of 0.1 percent as the services sector barely grew. That was way less than the 0.4 percent consensus in the markets. [Left unsaid here is what the ‘margin of error’ is for this statistic. Normally they are doing quite well to keep it down to a single percent, but that’s rare, extremely rare given all of the goofballs and special interests that all have their fingers in the pie…]
The weak growth rate hit the pound hard, pushing it down a whole cent following the data’s release to $1.6112, even though the figures raised eyebrows in the markets.
Earnings reports so far this month have mostly failed to push the market higher, even though companies are regularly topping analysts’ expectations. Analysts say investors now want to see more than earnings beating expectations. They want to see revenue growth and strong outlooks for future quarters to reinforce beliefs that the economy is rebounding. [Understand that a company ‘beating expectations’ means it is merely ‘treading water’, if they aren’t experiencing sales growth, all they’re doing is containing costs. So it’s only a matter of time until ‘expectations’ get so low that the enterprises suppliers find themselves incapable of keeping their doors open. Um, if you are unable to locate reliable sources for your inputs, you will no longer be able to produce your product…it takes ALL of the parts to get the job done.]
Tuesday’s results have lessened the blow from overseas concerns. Earnings from some major companies, including the insurance company, Travelers; the chemical company DuPont and the electronics giant Apple have provided some hope that the economy is strengthening.
Apple reported record profit after the market closed Monday thanks to a sharp increase in iPhone sales globally.
Travelers generated sharply higher revenue and profit during the fourth quarter, easily beating expectations.
Growing global sales and lower raw material costs help DuPont return to profitability. The company also bolstered its 2010 earnings guidance.
Um, I addressed the significance of these two ‘aberrations’ earlier in the opening. This variety of ‘journalistic insincerity’ does the MSM no favors.
No irony should be lost on the fact that this story, intended to provide ‘cover’ for the US markets while exchanges elsewhere on the planet bled to death, ultimately amounted to nothing more than a feeble breathe of fetid air.
This article was posted to provide cover for a rally that didn’t happen, which isn’t entirely true. The markets started off in negative territory, shot up to positive 80, then in the final minutes of trading, plunged below the waves to end the session in barely negative territory.
Not that it particularly matters in the overall scheme of things.
Today’s markets prove that they could, if they thought they could get away with it, drive the Dow to thirty thousand points. And they just might do it one of these fine days; if only to be able to say they did it…and what a laugh it was driving it up so high!
This is perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of our times. Society is no longer being managed for the benefit of all, it is being driven of a cliff for the benefit of the few.
Equally as disturbing is the fact that the ‘responsible parties’ are hiding in plain sight. Sure most are fronts and proxies for the ‘real’ perps but these are in fact the people we elected to prevent this sort of shit from happening!
If we fail to punish these ‘sock puppets’ we have no hope of bringing the true responsible parties to justice.
If there is a ‘job one’ good citizen, this is it.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
No comments:
Post a Comment