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.

According to this post at IndexUniverse, ProShares is attempting to considerably expand their current offerings of double, inverse, and double inverse index ETFs. While their current set of funds cover the Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 and MidCap 400, the company has filed for permission to issue 3 new ETFs on each of 22 different indices.

If these funds come to pass, you too will be able to ‘double short’ the DJ US Real Estate Index in your IRA…

Hat tip to Random Roger.

PowerShares plans to bring out their own set of sector ETFs, along the same lines as the Sector SPDRs, but with a slightly different twist in terms of the weighting:

Benchmark indexes, including S&P and Russell, typically utilize the market-cap weighting structures found in a traditional investment approach. The cap-weighted structure forces an investor to overweight overvalued companies and underweight undervalued companies, creating a significant growth bias and investment approach that are contrary to sound investment principles.

Unlike traditional benchmark indexes, fundamentally weighted indexes, like the FTSE RAFI Sectors, utilize weighting structures that embody fundamental measures of size including sales, income, book value and dividends. Fundamentally weighted indexes were created for use in the sophisticated investment approaches used by many investment professionals today.

The information says the anticipated listing date is September 20th.

John Mauldin wonders if, for some reason, Mr. Market has finally decided to be Mr. Nice Guy:

The market, my various mentors have all told me, is designed to cause the most pain to the largest number of people. And while I am not in pain, the recent move up in the various market indices is certainly not in keeping with my thoughts that the economy is going to slow down and thus should exert downward pressure on the equity markets. Has the world transitioned to a kinder, gentler Mr. Market? One who views investors with compassion and encouragement? Has he truly turned over a new leaf, and this time promises to be different? Should I simply smile and be patient, or throw in the towel and buy the Vanguard 500? And is the stock market really all that good at predicting the direction of the economy?

	Tech stocks had led the way for the past couple of months, moving nearly straight up off the lows in July.
	The market appears to be of the belief that the consumer either is or will be back. The recent drop in energy prices has helped to reinforce that thinking.
	Health care continues its much stronger showing after months of lagging.
	The utilities, which had been leading the pack, are looking a little toppy here, but haven’t really broken down yet.
	The destruction in energy goes on. Stay away until the smoke clears.

The numbers after another options expiration boost:

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com