MKW

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

What worries me is that, while I enjoy the comparison to HAL9000, it's almost certainly giving the Powers That Be too much credit. For starters, I'd bet the software in question isn't running on some big, monolithic heavy iron, but more like the years-old Linux workstation under my desk. As such, I'm concerned that the actual level of sophistication of the programs running the market these days is, in reality, relatively low. I'm in IT and I've worked with all sorts of software, from Computational Fluid Dynamics and complex Computer Aided Design to, today, a web-based retailer. The problem with software is always error handling. I'm really worried about what happens when unexpected input starts coming in. I've got a funny feeling that real testing of this software was never a very high priority.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

Note that as far as volume was concerned, GS and XLF were the whole show yesterday - and even they just managed to get up to volume which would have been considered average in mid-April.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

About there not being anyone interested in the market beyond Da Boyz... I don't know if you ever read Tyler Durden's posts on SA, but a couple weeks back he noted that institutional and individual investor volume on the major stock exchanges had sunk from an average 3.8 billion shares a few months ago to 1.8 billion shares. That left, as he put it, "a bunch of computers desperately trying to front-run each other" as the sole remaining source of market volume. Well, that and a certain large bank which likes to regularly shout "Boo!" in its own special way by dumping multi-million share market buy orders of SPY into the system.

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

I have to disagree with you, Dave... There is one potential stimulus to move the market higher - a certain large bank's secondary. Said bank has been so active with the late afternoon explosions in SPY that I think they have a lot of chits to call in. It might only be a ferocious, three-day rocket flight (like 1/2/02 to 1/6/02), but I think people discount the risk of a super-quick jam up back to S&P 950 at their own peril. After that, I don't know were the floor is.

Wednesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

Yes, I agree. Note what happened after the three day run from 870 to 930. The market went sideways for a couple of weeks then plunged to its March, 2003 low.


On Jun 17 08:44 AM DDPearson wrote:

> On Jun 17 07:01 AM MKW wrote:

Wednesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

It's actually gratifying to finally see Mr. Market get his head out of you-know-what; however my sense is that things are going to get interesting from here. My current thesis uses the market from 12/2/02 to 1/6/03 as the model. It was two months off what would eventually be recognized as the ultimate low of the tech bubble burst. S&P 500 hit an intraday high of 954 (sound familiar?) before retreating to roughly 870, then blasting back up to 930 again - and I mean blast, it took three trading days.

Let's not forget, it's JPM that's been almost solely responsible for the "emergency" large-block buy orders in SPY which have provided us almost daily stick-save entertainment for the last couple of months; and it's JPM which still has its secondary coming up at the end of June. I have a funny feeling that they've finally come to the conclusion that it would be too difficult to keep the market propped for that long and so are content to let it drop. Easier to make a repeat of 1/2/03 - 1/6/03 to elevate their share price.

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

The "Stick Save" into the end was of quite a bit different character than has been the pattern lately. For one thing, there were no spectacular blasts of volume on SPY taking the thing up most of a point in one tick - it's been a long time since we haven't seen at least one of those in a trading day. My sense was that the buying efforts which took us off the bottom were probably trading programs trying to get ahead of the typical 2:00 and/or 3:00 and/or 3:30 and/or 3:50 and/or 3:58 Gargantuan, Market Dislocating SPY Buy Orders Courtesy of JPM. Today had a totally different texture. I'm wondering if, now that GS and JPM, et. al. have repaid TARP, if there will be less urgency to keep the market propped.

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

The thing that gets me about this last-ten-minutes propping up of the market is.... why? Surely it would be more worth the while of TPTB to allow the market to go through an (apparently) normal, healthy retracement, then jam it up from, say S&P 880 or so. Doing so would give the rally acres more credibility, give TPTB an unobstructed path to profits from shorting for a couple weeks, and probably drive some volume - all the better for them to dump later. That and the Fed and Treasury dept. surely have to be sweating bullets at the rise in interest rates and commodities - both directly due to the ferocity of the stock market upswing.

It's at the point where the propping has turned counter-productive, and yet it's still going on - WTF?

Wednesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

Hold on! Wait just a minute! There's got to be something wrong with your chart for SPY! It looks like the market actually went down in the last ten minutes. That can't be - it isn't allowed anymore, I thought. Oh, sure, I've heard legends that it used to happen, once upon a time, but I can't believe I'm actually seeing it. Got to be a mistake.

Tuesday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

I think it's safe to assume that once the last of the banks have their recapitalization funds, the thumb will come off the scale. Three months ago, if someone had imagined this rally, I would have said they need psychiatric help. At this point, the Fed's got to be telling the banks to hurry it up, given the damage the rise in interest rates is doing.

And it looks like someone's setting up early for the anticipated 2:00 Rally. It's only 1:30 and someone just jammed the Dow up 20 points (and back to a positive number) in about two ticks. The Powers That Be really just don't give a crud what kind of damage they're doing to the market's credibility as a valid valuation discovery mechanism, do they?

Friday Outlook: Commodities, Global Markets

About the stick save at the end. Are you implying it wasn't because Individual Investors Everywhere find the market is offering such compelling value, especially in financials?


LOL!!!!!!!

Thursday Outlook: Commodities, Emerging Markets

Certainly a relief rally once the bailout passes; but these are getting shorter and shorter. After a year of watching absolutely gonzo rocket blasts up in the market any time the piddliest little piece of We-Can-Maybe-Spin-It-A... news (Dow up 150, 200 intraday because McDonalds raised its dividend, anyone?) it's actually kind of a relief to see some actual skepticism burrowing its way into the market. It gives me hope the market can get back to health, eventually.