Down goes the Dow

Down over 300 now. One thing Mas seems to have been right about has been decreased retail demand, and decreased growth. I wonder how much of the decrease in retail demand is due to gasoline, or if it is even included in the number.

If what Mas says has any merit, the government will find a new way to fudge growth data so that it won't look so bad. Yes, they have tinkered with it, but we will see what happens this year.

Buy! Buy! Buy! wrote:

Down over 300 now. One thing Mas seems to have been right about has been decreased retail demand, and decreased growth. I wonder how much of the decrease in retail demand is due to gasoline, or if it is even included in the number.

If what Mas says has any merit, the government will find a new way to fudge growth data so that it won't look so bad. Yes, they have tinkered with it, but we will see what happens this year.

Maser, you are being very cowardly hiding behind other handles - come on out.

Anyway, you are going short sighted to say the consumer spending is down. Yes, in December, there was a small drop.

But if you include November, the retail numbers are solid - +4.1%.

Month to month isn't very meaningul - for all of 2014, retail sales were up 4.1% and it's not even clear if that counts online purchases - surely those were up much more than that.

so no, you have not been right about decreased retail demand or decreased growth. both are growing just fine.

If there was ever a time for a "governor" to kick in, for the "fed" to start buying, or for "buy signals" to hit the HFT crowd, the time is now.

Now down 350, and falling (!)

Holy shiit did you all see that? I'm starting to believe that some people can predict certain types of market behaviour.

the world appears to be ending

sayonara, ciao, adios, goodbye to all that

see you on the other side

seriously - what is left to blow up in our faces?

currencies, gold, oil, many stock markets...

probably US stocks, unfortunately

I'll be selling something on Jan 31 if we stay below the 200 day moving average on world stocks

on the other hand, global growth is still...ok. 3-4%. that will help, but all these surprises is going to chase a lot of money away from stocks.

bloody unreliable swiss.

wtf are you talking about gold is up. in fact if it is maserati posting under different names, if he posted under the Buy Gold name a few days ago, he was right.

exactly where will that money go? Bonds? lol

pegging to the euro was for a different era

Don't worry, when the dow is down by 100, the feds will start buying again.

"the world appears to be ending

sayonara, ciao, adios, goodbye to all that

see you on the other side"

agip = maserati ?

Incredibly well done, if true.

lol the index dipped just below -100, and has now miraculously rebounded to -50

The plot thickens wrote:

agip = maserati ?

Incredibly well done, if true.

Unfortunately it is not true. Weird that you would even think that.

The plop thins.

Lagarde comes out and says that she's shocked by the SNB un-pegging from the Euro, and that the SNB should have "talked" with the IMF before such as move. LOL!

Hey Lagarde, we're not buying into your extrotion anymore! Interesting times... interesting times.

Just thinking anecdotally - we are starting earnings season - my memory is that the weeks leading up to earnings seasons are often rocky.

that happened in the first two weeks of January, April and October, and now January again. In 2014 once earnings came out, the market recovered quickly.

July 2014 was an exception - no rocky weeks between the end of the quarter and when earnings starting arriving.

So is that rockiness a coincidence or just something we have to expect and overlook now?

It looks like there's a serious point of resistance around 17300.

Quick drop of 100 this morning before the feds started buying, now about even.

small caps rallying a bit here even with a very high VIX - that is some good news. but nothing seruious - could evaporate in 5 minutes.

Holy toledo hedge funds are getting whacked. Every classic hedgy bet is getting beat up

buy oil!

bet on stability of Swiss francs!

bet against the US consumer!

bet on higher interest rates!

all wrong

We always have to remember that when surprises happen like the swiss decision and oil crashing, big hedge funds panic and have to liquidate positions at any price basically. So it's often just fast money exiting positions en masse - not necc. any fundamental change.

hedge funds continue to get almost everything wrong - they were up 3-5% last year as a whole - very poor performance.

that said, there are many many reasons not to own stocks right now - clearly there is upheaval and change - feels like a new era starting.

Cool, I'll keep that in mind.

Question, why did the Swiss exit their Euro peg?

bluebonnet wrote:

Cool, I'll keep that in mind.

Question, why did the Swiss exit their Euro peg?

well I'm no expert and you can read about it on the interwebs, but the heart of it is that in the 2008 crisis the swiss didn't want their currency to rocket so high that their exports froze up.

So the swiss essentially pegged the franc to the euro, so swiss exporters wouldn't get hammered.

that worked for a while as the euro was fairly strong 2008-20012/3.

then the euro started falling. cash started flowing into switzerland, which would normally cause the franc to rise. but the swiss said nein, non, no. So they bought billions of euros to keep their currency from rising too much.

but finally now as the euro has fallen sharply, the swiss felt it was a losing game and not sustainable. So they gave up - letting the peg slip. It was just too expensive to keep it up.

the problem is that it was a massive suprise - markets do not like surprises.

I am probably wrong on some of the detail there, but the heart of it is correct.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index showed a preliminary reading of 98.2 for January, compared to expectations of 94.1 and a final figure for December of 93.6.

Highest since 2004.

Thank You Obama! wrote:

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index showed a preliminary reading of 98.2 for January, compared to expectations of 94.1 and a final figure for December of 93.6.

Highest since 2004.

yeah - the question is how well teh US economy can do when the rest of the world is slowing. it's an open question - we have this nearly self contained economy - amazing thing, it is. But still...

interesting thing, this little up day today - nothing much to speak of - up half a percent or so - but the cool thing is that the VIX is up even as stocks have calmed and risen a little bit.

Which tells me of an exceptional level of freakout - which is great - that measn much selling has already taken place and maybe there isn't so much more.

A couple good earnings reports and the US could rocket pretty quickly back up as fund people won't want to miss yet another boat. Good lord hedge funds and mutual funds stunk up the place last year. thanks to god for index funds.