Bear Mountain Bull

…and the recession will go away.

From Americablog:

For the umpteenth time, CNBC is declaring an end to the recession. That’s right, we’ve turned the corner again. For those following CNBC we’ve turned so many corners that some might say we’re going in circles. In the minds of the Wall Street cheerleaders, a few positive signs are enough to stand up and say “mission accomplished” and start promoting the next run. It’s really cute and the new varsity letter that CNBC will receive from Wall Street will surely look nice but there’s a lot more reason for concern than celebration these days.

This ongoing theory that the economy is can be magically improved with a few smiles is ridiculous. Absolutely, the market can be moved with sentiment but to cherry pick a few small positive points and overlook the fact that the banks were on life-support a few months ago is quite a stretch. They are only alive because of massive government intervention and the pumped up numbers by a few may not last. The market needs more than a smile to move forward in any meaningful way.

I think not. All this spin is just a bunch of BM-BS.

From Yahoo:

U.S. car and truck sales showed signs of stabilizing in June after a year of sharp declines, but every major automaker except Honda Motor Co. reported lower sales than in May.

From The Big Picture:

Auto sales for June:

• Ford Motor smaller-than-expected 11%;
• Chrysler Group 42% decline;
• General Motors slipped by 33.4%
• Toyota Motor reported a 32% drop;
• Honda Motor slid almost 30%;
• Nissan reported U.S. sales fell 23%;
• Hyundai reported an 18%;
• Volkswagen sales fell 18%;
• BMW June U.S. Sales Down 20.3%
• Mercedes-Benz sales fell 22.6%

Note that June had 25 selling days, one more than a year ago.

I wonder if these writers would be saying that their paychecks were ’stabilizing’ if they were falling 30% YOY.

We’re from the gov’t, and we’re here to help you stay underwater…

And they call it the “Home Affordable Refinance” program.

Feds to refinance mortgages up to 125 percent of value

Bizarre action in the REITs. They’ve been trading all over the place for weeks, even months. Then, suddenly, we see very narrow range bars to the upside 9 of the past 10 days.

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com

At Calculated Risk.

6. Will my financial institution honor a registered warrant?
Recipients of registered warrants should contact their financial institution to determine whether they will honor the registered warrant before the redemption date.

7. What happens if my financial institution will not accept the registered warrant?
You may decide to open an account at another financial institution that will accept registered warrants, or you will have to hold the warrant until it matures on October 1, 2009.

Yeesh.

Stocks made another mad dash up this morning, with the indices hitting their highs in the second hour of trading. They held near those levels for a couple of hours before starting to slide, and by closing time, had given up more than half of the initial gains.

Internals were positive, but volume looks to be lighter. Advances/declines were 3 to 1 on the NYSE and 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 13 to 7 on the NYSE and 7 to 3 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 38/0 on the NYSE and 39/5 on the Nasdaq.

Leaders — Gold/Silver (+3.82%), Hospitals (+2.79%), Airlines (+1.94%), Insurance (+1.94%), Disk Drives (+1.70%), Network (+1.67%), Semis (+1.47%), HMOs (+1.45%)
Laggards — Biotechs (-1.42%), Steel (-1.03%), Banks (-0.71%), Retailers (-0.29%), Oil Services (-0.19%), Natural Gas (-0.14%), Defense (-0.10%), Health Care Products (-0.07%)

Treasury Yields — 6-Month: .31%,  2-Year: 1.05%,  5-Year: 2.51%,  10-Year: 3.54%,  30-Year: 4.34%

Crude took a big intraday dive after a morning pop:
Energy Prices — Crude oil: $69.31/barrel,  Gasoline: $1.8590/gallon,  Natural Gas: $3.795/mmBTU

US Dollar Index — 79.641

Precious Metals — Gold: $940.30/ounce,  Silver: $13.70/ounce,  Platinum: $1199.00/ounce

BMB Note:  
Let’s get this holiday stuff over with. Tomorrow promises to be a real snoozer — that is, unless the morning jobs number shakes things up. We’ll find out in the morning.

Zero Hedge has an interesting video of Joe Saluzzi from Themis Trading on Bloomberg yesterday, discussing the current market and the predominance of ‘high frequency’ trading.

ZH quotes Saluzzi:

“I have a feeling one day the door is gonna close, everyone is going to be running for the exits, there is going to be a major move in the market and everyone is going to wonder “what happened?”

There is problem structurally in the equity markets that nobody wants to talk about. There is intervention, there is manipulation going on. No one has exact proof of what is going on but it’s out there, and the real liquidity has been gone for a while. People don’t understand, the liquidity is not coming back.”

Apostrophe Abuse.

Link via Instapundit.

From Michael Kahn:

Never before have I seen so many polar opposite forecasts as I am seeing now. I agree with people with whom I never agree (or respect, in some cases) and I disagree with people with whom I usually agree (and respect a lot). But then again, not all of them on both sides.

—

What the deal? Who knows? Nobody knows but that is no excuse for investment paralysis. I called it “retreating into an investment cocoon” on another website. Do your homework, follow some respected analyst’s analysis (but make your own conclusions) and then control risk.

As was mentioned in a previous post, it really is all about money management – make your bed and lie in it and control the heck out of risk. A good trader can make money no matter what portfolio he is given because he will cut the crap out right away and let the correct decisions ride. Trite but true.

Steve Nison, aka Mr. Candlesticks, likes to push a trading triad – Eastern Technicals, Western Technicals and Money Management. Everyone knows how to buy but few really master the art of selling.