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.

A simple explanation from Price Headley: inflation and interest rates.

Another day when it was hard not to make money.

The Nasdaq led the charge with a gain of 26 points (+1.3%) to close at 2061, surpassing its June 30th close of 2047. Next in line would be the April 5th close at 2079. The S&P 500 tacked on more than 10 points (+0.9%) to finish at 1173, and the Dow added 84 points (0.8%) to close at 10470. The Russell 2000 also joined in the fun to the tune of 6 points for a 1% gain.

As you might expect, market internals were strong with advances leading declines by 3 to 1 on the NYSE and 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq, and up volume leading down volume by 3 to 1 on both exchanges. New highs again outnumbered new lows by more than 10 to 1.

Nearly every industry group joined the party today, with technology stocks getting the best of the action. Semiconductors, networking, internet, and hardware stocks all posted gains of more than 2%. Only oil and oil services stocks fell, and those only by small fractions.

Spock would have trouble with the stock market: “It is not logical.”

From an article by Ike Iossif of Aegean Capital Group:

In conclusion, we have enough factual technical evidence to be short-term bullish until proven otherwise. With regard to the intermediate term (3-6 months out) we are skeptical, but open minded. After all, the market’s behavior is nothing more but a direct reflection of the collective beliefs, values, and actions of its participants. Today’s financial markets are “blessed” with a generation of participants who have proven over and over that they see no reason to make decisions about their investments that are based on investment merit! In other words, just because it makes no sense under the current circumstances to entertain the idea that the market is kicking off a multi-month rally, it doesn’t mean that it can not happen. It sure can, for the very simple reason that the majority of market participants don’t employ common or financial sense in making market decisions, which at times causes the market to act in ways that can’t be explained by, understood thru, or be associated with any kind of financial or economic principle and theory.

A comparison of today’s market state and sentiment to those of 10 years ago.