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.

BMB said on Friday:

The G7 meets this weekend, and folks are wondering if other countries will complain about Japan’s “weak Yen policy”. As long as the Yen stays weak and BOJ rates stay low, the ‘carry trade’ will be alive and well to help support asset prices globally. My guess is as long as markets around the world continue to rise, the central banks and governments will just watch with glee.

Bingo!!

The G7, as expected, was very conservative about exchange rates, sticking to the language from the past statements and avoiding singling out the downward movement in the yen…

Japan’s ultralow interest rates are fostering a carry trade with other currencies, giving investors a chance to borrow in yen and lend the money out in other higher yielding currencies, especially the dollar. The carry trade has depressed the yen’s value, helping Japanese exporters.

Some in Europe have complained that the weak yen is hurting their competitiveness, but the chief critic, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, didn’t attend Friday’s meeting in Washington, preferring to stay on holiday with his family in Africa.

BMB has been upgraded to the latest and greatest rev of Wordpress, the magic script engine that works in mysterious ways to make all this stuff show up on your screen.

Leave a comment on this post or drop me an email if you see something funky or something that just plain doesn’t work right.

The longer term uptrends are still intact in the charts of the Materials and Utilities, with the Utilities pulling back a bit this week (the 50-day moving average is in red, the 20-day in blue).

Energy stocks have had a great month, and Health Care stocks have taken off in the past couple of weeks.

Industrials, Techs, and Consumer Staples are trying to recover, but the charts are still pretty choppy.

The Financials and Consumer Discretionary stocks are lagging. The market seems to be a bit concerned about the financial environment, and the possible effects on consumer spending.

The numbers as the market probes the February highs:

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com