Down goes the Dow

I used "may have" and "predicted" because the official Q1 GDP stats don't get published until April 28th.

The 1.9% was based on the mean and median Wall Street estimates.

For a better explanation of GDP see

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/economic-calendar/

American Airlines Group Tuesday said flight cancellations because of bad weather hurt first-quarter results.

The carrier canceled more than 34,000 flights in the first three months of this year, reducing quarterly revenue by about $115 million and operating profit by about $60 million.

American said it now estimated operating margin at 5 percent to 7 percent for the first quarter, down from a late January forecast of 6 percent to 8 percent.

The company also had said in January that pretax margin would probably be between 4 percent and 6 percent.

So, what do you take from that post?

Did nobody who was supposed to be on those 34,000 flights end up traveling? If not, did they not spend the money that they got reimbursed, if any? Did nobody take trains or drive instead? How about hotels that people had to stay at while waiting? Or meals they needed to eat? Or the de-icing chemical suppliers and parts suppliers for snow removal and de-icing equipment?

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Even at that, the operating margin will quite possibly still be within the late January forecast. FORECAST. And still the pretax margin is projected to be 4-6%.

EVEN IF you take everything they say at face value, so what? AA is not the entirety of the US economy.

This argument is lame.

Maserati wrote:

So, what do you take from that post?

Did nobody who was supposed to be on those 34,000 flights end up traveling? If not, did they not spend the money that they got reimbursed, if any? Did nobody take trains or drive instead? How about hotels that people had to stay at while waiting? Or meals they needed to eat? Or the de-icing chemical suppliers and parts suppliers for snow removal and de-icing equipment?

I could go on, but you get the picture.

Even at that, the operating margin will quite possibly still be within the late January forecast. FORECAST. And still the pretax margin is projected to be 4-6%.

EVEN IF you take everything they say at face value, so what? AA is not the entirety of the US economy.

This argument is lame.

When the weather sucks (too cold, snowy, icey to be out and about) people do less stuff. Doing stuff IS the GDP.

QED

Thanks for that incredibly insightful and useful comment.

Dow flat yesterday and today, everybody in a holding pattern until earnings announced?

Technicals guys announcing every day that every event is predicted by something in their paradigm.

Maserati wrote:

Thanks for that incredibly insightful and useful comment.

Dow flat yesterday and today, everybody in a holding pattern until earnings announced?

Technicals guys announcing every day that every event is predicted by something in their paradigm.

...accompanied by you announcing that every event portends the end of the world as we know it.

this weather debate shows the difficulty of clean analysis of data. Or put another way, the difficulty of overcoming confirmation bias. ( the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses)

We all read the news looking for ways to back up our own views.

Maser sees a story about how bad weather has slowed business...and he automatically calls bs, because he is predisposed to be bearish and cynical about the economic system.

I see stories about how bad weather has slowed business and I tend to believe them, because I am pretty mainstream and not inclined to doomsday talk.

What's the best way to get around conformation bias? Probably either conversation with someone who disagrees with you, or sitting down with pencil and paper and saying 'write three paragraphs from the opposite side'

gente is good at using numbers...but he often doesn't have a topic sentence so sometimes I'm not sure what his argument is.

But he/she might be our most neutral source on this thread.

[quote]agip wrote:

"this weather debate shows the difficulty of clean analysis of data. Or put another way, the difficulty of overcoming confirmation bias. ( the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses)

We all read the news looking for ways to back up our own views.

Maser sees a story about how bad weather has slowed business...and he automatically calls bs, because he is predisposed to be bearish and cynical about the economic system.

I see stories about how bad weather has slowed business and I tend to believe them, because I am pretty mainstream and not inclined to doomsday talk.

What's the best way to get around conformation bias? Probably either conversation with someone who disagrees with you, or sitting down with pencil and paper and saying 'write three paragraphs from the opposite side'

gente is good at using numbers...but he often doesn't have a topic sentence so sometimes I'm not sure what his argument is.

But he/she might be our most neutral source on this thread."

Jesus Christ. Don't you ever get sick of your own BS?

Klondike5 wrote:

Jesus Christ. Don't you ever get sick of your own BS?

This is just too funny coming from K5.

simple questions:

Why don't you register your name

and

what in holy heck do you have against these pretty boxes the brojos have let us use to make posts easier to read?

bloody psycho

No one is neutral when its your money.

We're at a near term top, because of coming May sell cycle, tapering, and the weather this past winter. 1900 SP seems stratospheric given business conditions in China and mainstreet US. Capex and 'trickle down' never materialized.

When the taper ends (it probably won't completely) the market will correct again, especially if Nat Gas and Oil rally end of this year into next.

Consumer spending will dry up very quickly energy/gas bills + Obamacare, profit margins will decline for the next few years.

stacked cards wrote:

No one is neutral when its your money.

We're at a near term top, because of coming May sell cycle, tapering, and the weather this past winter. 1900 SP seems stratospheric given business conditions in China and mainstreet US. Capex and 'trickle down' never materialized.

When the taper ends (it probably won't completely) the market will correct again, especially if Nat Gas and Oil rally end of this year into next.

Consumer spending will dry up very quickly energy/gas bills + Obamacare, profit margins will decline for the next few years.

hey, a question for you:

Why are you ignoring the fact that virtually every economic # from North America and Europe is unequivocally positive?

Not every number, but we have solid growth, low interest rates, low inflation, improving employment, lots of money at the banks to lend, corp earnings are growing well...I could go on.

I'm a conservative and my job is to verbalized talking points that make Obama and the Dems look bad. Facts be damned.

Because every number is manipulated for financial/political purposes.

And also every number is (was) based on 80 billion a month bond buybacks and ZIRP/LIRP. Its a simple concept, if you just give money to certain people those people are going to report good things.

Well with all those injections Cap Ex and Hourly wages did not increase. But inflation did, oops.

So if Cap Ex and wages were stagnant with 80 billion a month, surely 55 Billion a month will mean good things? Or howabout 20 or 0? Which is what is going to happen with the taper and higher interest rates.

Frankly its amazing that Corporate profits have grown so much in the last 2 years, but in light of stagnant wages, completely alien accounting methods for some tech stocks, and lowered capex of course Corporate profits and profit margins were going to be high!

This is the weakest fundamental basis a major stock rally has ever been precipitated on, and even then its only been achieved largely on the back of HFT and shadow pools of liquidity. It seems without these gimmicks the true value of the market is unknowable, but certainly massively overvalued without them.

Ever!

agip wrote:

Why are you ignoring the fact that virtually every economic # from North America and Europe is unequivocally positive?

... corp earnings are growing well...I could go on.

How are corp revenues doing growth-wise, agip? ;)

Hypocrite detector wrote:

Klondike5 wrote:

Jesus Christ. Don't you ever get sick of your own BS?

This is just too funny coming from K5.

Want to repeat? I can't read Retard

stacked cards wrote:

agip wrote:

hey, a question for you:

Why are you ignoring the fact that virtually every economic # from North America and Europe is unequivocally positive?

Not every number, but we have solid growth, low interest rates, low inflation, improving employment, lots of money at the banks to lend, corp earnings are growing well...I could go on.

I'm a conservative and my job is to verbalized talking points that make Obama and the Dems look bad. Facts be damned.

Nah. His job is to provide and endless stream of derivative drivel thinking it will make him look intelligent to the anonymous Letsrun crowd. I guess that's what you do when everyone in your real life knows you to be a fool

The market is overvalued. If it wasn't for the booming Obamaconomy we'd be set for a bigger correction.