Bear Mountain Bull

It’s time again for a little BMB R&R, especially with the market behaving as bizarrely as it’s been. Maybe if we stop watching it start to behave a little better…

Posting will be very light and variable over the course of this week, but we’ll put up an open thread each market day for our readers to comment on the day’s market activity or to post any interesting links they might run across.

Check the space below for whatever the latest might be during this ‘off’ time, and please visit the various sites in the ‘Links’ and ‘Regular Stops’ for up-to-date market news and analysis.

BMB will be back in full swing by next weekend.

What started out looking like a big day turned into a rather blah day, with the major indices all up less than 1% on decent volume. The Nasdaq rally was turned back at the 200-day moving average, around 1965 . Advances/declines were OK as were up-volume/down-volume and new highs/new lows. Strongest moves came from the disk drive group and the airlines. Who’s buying airline stocks here, and why?

For whatever reason, the homebuilders took it on the chin today. The Housing Index (HGX) was down over 3% and many of the homebuilding stocks were down between 4-7%. Go figure.

Update: Another homebuilder, Pulte Homes (PHM) was down 8.6% on big volume today. If you own any of the home builders, better start keeping an eye on them.
Update II: So Pulte warns on Q3 and Y04 earnings - after the bell today. Yet, they (and the others) were down a bunch in today’s trading, before the warning. Hmmm.

Or befuddled pessimism? Hard to read the signals of the markets, especially as the rally continues this morning. Here’s Schaeffer’s Monday Morning Outlook.

Bill Fleckenstein speaks out on the seemingly bizarre numbers the government produces on inflation. BMB has always wondered how the gov’t can just exclude food & energy, as if those don’t count? As you will find, there’s even more to it…

Fleckenstein quotes Pimco’s Bill Gross, and links to Gross’s commentary on CPI and GDP. Gross’s article is worth reading as well.