Market Wrap May 23, 2013

Dow Industrials 15294.50 -12.67 -0.08% S&P 500 1650.51 -4.84 -0.29% Nasdaq Comp. 3459.42 -3.88 -0.11% Russell 2000 984.28 +2.02 +0.21%

NYSE Comp. 9466.29 -41.76 -0.44% Nasdaq 100 2991.45 -7.68 -0.26% Dow Transports 6429.79 +13.53 +0.21% Dow Utilities 504.51 -2.95 -0.58%

View Major Index charts

Internals were leaning negative on lighter volume. Advances/declines were 8 to 11 on the NYSE but just positive on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 2 to 3 on the NYSE and 9 to 10 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 48/38 on the NYSE and 47/27 on the Nasdaq.

Leaders — Comp. Hardware (+2.40%), Airlines (+2.00%), Disk Drives (+1.64%), Paper (+1.19%), Hospitals (+0.87%), Transport (+0.87%), HMOs (+0.84%), Homebuilders (+0.57%)
Laggards — REITs (-1.62%), Broker Dealers (-1.11%), Metals (-0.81%), Commodities (-0.74%), Utilities (-0.61%), Network (-0.58%), Drugs (-0.43%), Banks (-0.39%)

An extensive visual representation of the day’s winners and losers can be found at Finviz.com.

Treasury Yields — 6 Month: 0.07 %,  2 Year: 0.22 %,  5 Year: 0.68 %,  10 Year: 1.69 %,  30 Year: 2.88 %

Energy Prices — Crude oil: $94.27/barrel,  Gasoline: $2.83/gallon,  Natural Gas: $4.26/mmBTU

US Dollar Index — 83.681

Precious Metals — Gold: $1391.60/ounce,  Silver: $22.63/ounce,  Platinum: $1459.00/ounce

BMB Note:  
So, was yesterday THE top? Who the heck knows? Too early to tell.

Tomorrow’s the last trading day before a long holiday weekend.

Morning Wrap

We don’t get these very often, do we?

In case you missed them, Zero Hedge has the overnight happ’nins…

Nikkei down 7%, only gave back 9 days of gains.

Added: “Gary on the markets”

So Soon? May 22, 2013

Chris Martenson:

With equity and bond markets at or near all-time record highs, with all financial assets consistently shrugging off bad – or worse – news as the riskiest of assets continue to find consistent upward bids, we find ourselves in familiar and bubbly territory.

I can summarize my thoughts in one sentence: How could this be happening again so soon?

In times past, it took one or more generations between bubbles for people to financially recover and forget the painful lessons before they would consider doing it all again. Yet here we are, working our way through our third set of bubbles in less than two decades, which must be some sort of world record.

Market Wrap

Dow Industrials 15307.17 -80.41 -0.52% S&P 500 1655.35 -13.81 -0.83% Nasdaq Comp. 3463.30 -38.82 -1.11% Russell 2000 982.27 -16.51 -1.65%

NYSE Comp. 9508.05 -90.22 -0.94% Nasdaq 100 2999.13 -27.32 -0.90% Dow Transports 6416.32 -102.68 -1.58% Dow Utilities 507.46 -8.03 -1.56%

View Major Index charts

Internals were negative on heavier volume. Advances/declines were 2 to 7 on the NYSE and 1 to 3 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 1 to 3 on the NYSE and 2 to 7 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 489/20 on the NYSE and 269/17 on the Nasdaq.

Leaders — Gold/Silver (+1.07%), Drugs (+0.28%), Hospitals (+0.24%), HMOs (-0.20%), Health Care Products (-0.21%), Comp. Hardware (-0.23%), Disk Drives (-0.27%), Airlines (-0.43%)
Laggards — Paper (-2.65%), REITs (-2.53%), Network (-2.17%), Software (-2.02%), Oil Services (-1.97%), Telecoms (-1.83%), Internet (-1.81%), Natural Gas (-1.59%)

An extensive visual representation of the day’s winners and losers can be found at Finviz.com.

Treasury Yields — 6 Month: 0.07 %,  2 Year: 0.22 %,  5 Year: 0.70 %,  10 Year: 1.72 %,  30 Year: 2.92 %

Energy Prices — Crude oil: $94.03/barrel,  Gasoline: $2.82/gallon,  Natural Gas: $4.18/mmBTU

US Dollar Index — 84.238

Precious Metals — Gold: $1365.80/ounce,  Silver: $22.31/ounce,  Platinum: $1465.00/ounce

BMB Note:  
Bankers babble, markets get spastic. Pretty standard…

Fed talking out of both orifices giving market indigestion. It's the China Syndrome Trade: taper/no taper, she's my mother, she's my sister—
Jeff Cooper (@JeffCooperLive) May 22, 2013

But today’s action could be important — Gary Kaltbaum, earlier today on Twitter:

uh…uh…uh…how do u say high volume turnaround off of extended and frothy conditions…of course, there is 2 hours left—
Gary Kaltbaum (@GaryKaltbaum) May 22, 2013

And this on today’s Fed minutes release:

One participant said "the Committee should start to shift any asset purchases away from MBS and toward Treasury securities"—
  (@zerohedge) May 22, 2013

By the time they’re ‘done’, the Fed’s going to be buying up pretty much ALL US gov’t bond issuance. I doubt that’s a very good idea.

All You Need May 21, 2013

Bruce Krasting:

Some will look at the KIK deal and conclude that this is evidence of a healthy capital market. I see it it quite the opposite. This type of financing is an accident waiting to happen. The fact is that Bernanke’s money policies have long since crossed over from being something that contributes to economic health and stability, to something that is adding to systemic risks and instability. I suspect that Bernanke is well aware of this fact, so are other members at the FRB. If you’re looking for evidence that Bernanke has pushed the string too far, the KIK deal is all you need to look at.

If Bernanke is honest with the facts, he would wind down QE as fast as he could. If he doesn’t, then his warnings over the past few months about the risks of cheap money are just a lie. So Ben has a hard choice in front of him. Either he backs off of his reckless money policy, or his legacy goes up in smoke. The bubbles are popping up all over in 2013, I don’t think that Ben wants to go down in the history books as another Fed Chairman that creates bubbles that come crashing down.

I don’t know if Ben’s got the guts to back off. He might just try to hang on until his term ends next year and then run for the hills.

And if he does try to back off and the markets start to wobble, he’ll be called up for a few ‘discussions’ at the White House. After all, there’s a facade to be kept up here.

Market Wrap

Dow Industrials 15387.58 +52.30 +0.34% S&P 500 1669.16 +2.87 +0.17% Nasdaq Comp. 3502.12 +5.69 +0.16% Russell 2000 998.76 +0.78 +0.08%

NYSE Comp. 9598.28 +10.74 +0.11% Nasdaq 100 3026.45 +5.48 +0.18% Dow Transports 6519.00 +8.01 +0.12% Dow Utilities 515.49 +0.79 +0.15%

View Major Index charts

Internals were positive with volume up just a bit. Advances/declines were 5 to 4 on the NYSE and 10 to 9 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume just better than flat on the NYSE and 3 to 2 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 410/20 on the NYSE and 227/6 on the Nasdaq.

Leaders — Drugs (+0.98%), Transport (+0.87%), Health Care Products (+0.83%), Retailers (+0.74%), REITs (+0.64%), Telecoms (+0.64%), Biotechs (+0.40%), Paper (+0.40%)
Laggards — Gold/Silver (-2.75%), Airlines (-1.01%), Insurance (-0.93%), Broker Dealers (-0.70%), Network (-0.48%), Internet (-0.37%), Comp. Hardware (-0.35%), Oil Services (-0.32%)

An extensive visual representation of the day’s winners and losers can be found at Finviz.com.

Treasury Yields — 6 Month: 0.07 %,  2 Year: 0.22 %,  5 Year: 0.70 %,  10 Year: 1.72 %,  30 Year: 2.92 %

Energy Prices — Crude oil: $95.89/barrel,  Gasoline: $2.84/gallon,  Natural Gas: $4.19/mmBTU

US Dollar Index — 83.831

Precious Metals — Gold: $1373.90/ounce,  Silver: $22.38/ounce,  Platinum: $1459.00/ounce

BMB Note:  
Indexes up? On a Tuesday? No way. Never seen THAT before…

Ya Think? May 20, 2013

“Sitting across from the IRS”

“This is not a personnel problem,” said Camp. “This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too intrusive, too abusive.”

Amen. We will not have a better IRS until we have a smaller IRS — and a much simpler tax code.

Too bad it won’t happen in what’s left of my lifetime.