After the last consolidation in January/February, the leaders were the samll and midcap indices. That suggests to me that the S&P500 will eventually make a move to a new rally high — but it might need some time to gather its strength to do so,
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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.
"Overall household indebtedness is up from $7 trillion to almost $10 trillion since 2000. On this sum, we estimate, the American consumer has an annual interest bill of more than $500 billion; a sum, by the way, that vastly exceeds his current income growth." —Kurt Richebacher
Knowing that the vote over the weekend in Greece was really a referendum on Euro membership, a majority of the Greek Parliament said yes to staying. European Finance Ministers meet again on Wednesday to solidify the 2nd bailout package for Greece at the same time hopefully a deal is consummated between Greece and its creditors this week. The Greek 14.5b euro bond that matures on March 20th is up by 2 pts. The optimism that all will be completed and contained AGAIN to Greece has yields lower in Portugal, Spain and Italy. The iTraxx Financial Index is also narrower by...
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March 9th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Quite amazing, considering what is happening to small companies …
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/03/nfib-small-business-optimism-declines.html
Of course, “small companies” falls more into the Russell 2000 & 3000 domain …
March 9th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
You are applying fundamental analysis to what is essentially a technical move off of a deeply oversold condition.
Plus, these are public firms — the small cap index members are on average much bigger than the NFIB small business survey responders
March 9th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Barry,
I hope you aren’t too upset that you agree with Abby Joseph Cohen, who never met a market she didn’t like:
“Stock Prices Have Room to Rise Further…Chance of ‘Double-Dip’ Less Likely, Abby Joseph Cohen Tells CNBC”
I never would have expected her to say that :)
March 9th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
A 70% technical bounce from oversold conditions? That’s funny. No, what we have here is government orchestrated collusion to drive up equity markets. Plus printing presses and and the backstopping of risk.
Fundamentals stopped mattering 12 months ago (and I disagree about being oversold then — those prices were fair). What we have now is a ponzi scheme.
How long can it go on? Hard to say, but certainly not forever. At some point fundamentals WILL matter.
~~~
BR: When has ANY government not stepped in after a market falls 50+ % ?
Potato/potahtoe
March 9th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Barry,
“what is essentially a technical move off of a deeply oversold condition.”
Are you talking about the condition a year ago? Otherwise, I must have missed this deeply oversold condition. I don’t see any now. I haven’t seen any for many months.
rc
March 9th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
If you ask me, those magic charts make it look like the markets will go up forever. The technicals (i.e. computers playing greater fool with each other while waiting for suckers to put new cash in) say it’s so. You can’t argue with a chart this formidable. Since many people think the market is overbought, a contrarian would buy everything in sight since stocks climb a wall of worry. This is a confirmation signal. Yesterday’s temp to perm magic chart combined with the fact total employed is still falling is yet another contrarian confirmation signal. As I said yesterday, if March employment shows a positive number (300,000 to the good per Brian Wesbury), we can surely expect unemployment to fall from 9.7 to 5%. The bull market is back, baby!
March 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
rootless_cosmopolitan Says:
March 9th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Otherwise, I must have missed this deeply oversold condition. I don’t see any now. I haven’t seen any for many months.
reply:
————
Any week the market fails to rise a few percent is technically “a deeply oversold condition”.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
today……..
1. fed evans, low rates forever
2. 3-1 upgrade to downgrades and quite a few
3. cisco, the world she’s a changing
4. financial reform still merky
5. texans can’t fill chip demand
March 9th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Bespoke’s point of view is:
http://www.bespokeinvest.com/thinkbig/2010/3/9/rolling-one-year-return-hits-68.html
down first.
but BR hasn’t really been wrong yet
March 9th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
torrie-amos,
Don’t disagree that a floor is forming up nicely. I just don’t like to take investing advice from those who make money off of keeping you invested.
The fundamentals still look a little uncertain and most of the market is based on government support in one form or another. Europe just removed a lot of cash from the system. The biggest US supports end in a few weeks. Since oil is $80+ in a low demand market, this means that phony equity values are still pervasive and real growth is going to be hindered by speculative excesses.
A little corruption is OK since it will always be there. Right now, the whole of the market is essentially corrupt and is more of a back room casino that a place to invest in America’s future. New money will re-enter only after it looks like it’s a safe place. And the market won’t rise very much without new money coming in.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
If the large caps break to a new high, then we probably are looking at 1200+ on the S&P. These markets are starting to get a bit giddy with materials, oil, gold, etc. (the dollar sensitive stuff) continuing up in the face of dollar strength. That suggests sentiment may be shifting from skepticism to optimism – just what’s needed at this point to fuel the next move up (here comes the herd).
In the absence of that unexpected event this market will probably keep on rolling through this week and next, then we may see some pullback as a combination of spring break vacations and the approach of the next earnings seasons may see some chips come off the table to pocket profits. How much comes off relative to what gets added over the next couple of weeks could determine how the picture then looks and is argued from there.
March 9th, 2010 at 2:59 pm
hobo,
i’m with u, i’m not a bull by any means, i have no trust for the most part
i still hold firm on 85 oil and it’s all she wrote
volume for the most part is low, today we got transports to new highs
March 9th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Fought the tape for two days last week, now Im back on the Jackson Browne bandwagon – a happy idiot, struggling for the legal tender. Show me the money and 1300 s&p.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:47 am
We need to go higher. We need people to TRULY BELIEVE in their little heart of hearts that we’re booming again. When you hear the phrase “are we going to be looking at new highs?” repeated ad nauseum, that’s when you short.
March 10th, 2010 at 7:52 am
And btw- most of you longs are getting killed in this rally.
1. No one caught the whole move.
2. Maybe you made $25K. Congrats. But you’re also paying 15% taxes on the profits. You’re already down to $22K.
3. More importantly, you’re paying 20% – 50% more for food, oil, heat and gas. If you spend $14K per annum on the above, you’ve already given back about $4 or $5K! And going forward, high oil is eating into your ‘profits’ on an ongoing basis!
4. You’re also holding mostly downside risk in your portfolio! Not only at your ‘profits’ disappearing slowly, but should the markets head south – you’ll be forced to take a BIG loss on all of it.
All is not as it seems. There’s really no ‘winning here’ per se – only degrees of ‘losing’!
March 10th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Mayor Quimby -
“… most of you longs are getting killed in this rally.”
Huh?
Every word = moronic.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Cog- Suck it. Put your 93 IQ points to use and think about what I wrote.