Bear Mountain Bull

On Thursday this week.

Thanks to Mat for getting us started in the comments section. I see we have a couple more ‘entries’ from Illinois:

First State Bank of Winchester, Winchester IL
John Warner Bank, Clinton IL

Let’s make it a trio from the Land of Obama Lincoln:
Rock River Bank, Oregon IL

Hmm. Looks like some real ‘fireworks’ this week. So far, it’s a six-pack, five from Illinois:
Millennium State Bank of Texas, Dallas TX
First National Bank of Danville, Danville IL
Elizabeth State Bank, Elizabeth IL

Wow. Seven, six from Illinois. Were they saving theirs up or what?
Founders Bank, Worth IL

Those groups we said looked vulnerable a couple of days ago broke down today — energy and defense:

Other areas to watch for signs of more trouble: steel/metals, chemicals, financials, REITs, housing and retail:

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com

The late wrap — a rather interesting day, very uncharacteristic of a pre-holiday session. Stocks started weak, never caught much of a bid at all, and sagged into the close:

Internals were negative. Volume was still light, but not as light as the usual holiday, and was nearly even with yesterday on the Nasdaq. Advances/declines were 1 to 5 on both exchanges, with up/down volume 1 to 15 on the NYSE and 1 to 6 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 16/5 on the NYSE and 13/10 on the Nasdaq.

When the day’s ‘leaders’ are all red, you know it wasn’t a good day:
Leaders — Defense (-0.10%), Semis (-1.15%), Airlines (-1.90%), Internet (-2.19%), Software (-2.19%), Health Care (-2.31%), Paper (-2.32%), Health Care Products (-2.40%)
Laggards — REITs (-5.46%), HMOs (-4.97%), Oil Services (-4.57%), Natural Gas (-4.19%), Retailers (-3.83%), Hospitals (-3.69%), Oil (-3.67%), Homebuilders (-3.48%)

Treasury Yields — 6-Month: .29%,  2-Year: .98%,  5-Year: 2.42%,  10-Year: 3.49%,  30-Year: 4.32%

Energy Prices — Crude oil: $66.73/barrel,  Gasoline: $1.7908/gallon,  Natural Gas: $3.615/mmBTU

US Dollar Index — 80.297

Precious Metals — Gold: $928.80/ounce,  Silver: $13.35/ounce,  Platinum: $1183.00/ounce

BMB Note:  
The magnitude of the move down today is fairly surprising — makes you wonder if the bears might actually start to gain some traction here soon. Today’s breakdowns in energy and defense, are not good news, and breakdowns are being threatened in the financials, housing and retail as well.

If you’re still long, make sure you’re honoring your stops. We will continue to look for opportunities on the short side.

For those here in the states, have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July holiday. We’ll have our usual weekend fare here at BMB, so feel free to drop by.

We already know the media is biased. I guess they figure that they may as well make it official, and make some money off of it. Now their bias will be for sale:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few”: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said this morning that he was “appalled” by the plan and said the newsroom will not participate.

“It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” Brauchli told The Post’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post.”

Bill King via The Big Picture:

The WSJ: Wall Street Pay Approaches 2007’s Records Will Ben, Hank, Little Timmy and Congressional leaders explain to the American people how it is possible for Wall Street to have near record remuneration AFTER the US taxpayers were put on the hook for about $12 trillion of guarantees to The Street? And will they explain to Americans that while Street insiders ‘earn’ record pay they must suffer a severe recession or depression, possibly record future inflation, collapsing home values, job losses and an income contraction?

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More from Zero Hedge on Government Sachs: Is Goldman Legally Frontrunning Its Clients?
Everyone who is anyone on Wall Street has at some point used the Goldman 360 portal whether for research, news, keeping a track of prime brokerage portfolio or, disturbingly, for trading, via the REDI Plus 9.0 platform (now loaded with enhanced algo trading features to make life for you, dear soon to be frontran Goldman client, so much easier). A second widely accepted Wall Street concept is that a disclaimer is the last thing that anyone reads, if ever. Yet after taking a close look at the Goldman disclaimer for the 360 portal, which is an umbrella waiver or all downstream websites, including REDI, one discovers the following gem:

Monitoring by GS: Your use of the products and services on this Web site may be monitored by GS, and that the resultant information may be used by GS for its internal business purposes or in accordance with the rules of any applicable regulatory or self-regulatory organization.

One second: by using Goldman 360 a client voluntarily allows Goldman to provide keystroke by keystroke data of everything the client does, even if that includes launching trades via REDI, to Goldman for the internal business purposes. The third thing everyone on Wall Street agrees on is that “internal business purposes” usually (and in Goldman’s case, almost exclusively) means proprietary trading.

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Bloomberg News: JP Morgan Raises Credit Card Monthly Minimum Payments [Thanks for the bailout; here’s your lovely parting gift, Mr. & Ms. Taxpayer.]  Citibank has already hiked credit card rates. The cost of credit is increasing for consumers. Is this how recoveries start? Is this a sign that the worst is over?

For those that believe any of the government numbers: NFP down 467,000 in June, unemployment rate ticked up to 9.5%.