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Odds are the huge stock market rebound since March has run its course. And even though it yields nothing, it's time to raise cash. Nothing is screamingly cheap. The easy money has been made in both equities and fixed income. From the low point in March, it seems you can't pick an asset class that hasn't gained something in the area of 60%. That was some fear discount back in March. During this universal recovery, as in most post-recessionary periods, lower-quality high-yield bonds have outperformed quality issues, and lots of smart guys who had the guts and money to buy...

It's coming in 2012: Another, bigger meltdown of Wall Street's "too-greedy-to-fail" banks. No, this is not another fanatical warning about that Dec. 21, 2012 end-of-days prediction based on the Mayan calendar, though you may well ask "Who will survive?" Here is what's happening: History is repeating itself. Wall Street's soul-sickness is setting up a new meltdown. Dead ahead. Be prepared. My track record speaks for itself. Back on March 20, 2000, my column headline read: "Next crash? Sorry, you'll never hear it coming." Bull's eye: The dot-com bubble popped at 11,722. The economy collapsed. A 30-month recession. Markets lost $8...

As strange as it might seem, the eight-month-old stock rally may just keep going because so many investors still think it won't last. Investment advisors say clients continue to view stocks with hesitancy and skepticism—a vestige of the panic that swept through the markets just a year ago. But that fear, ironically, has kept stocks from going up too far, too fast—allowing the market to move gradually higher as investors creep timidly back into stocks. "We're seeing a lot of evidence that they're buying this rally with a lot of apprehension,"says Richard Sparks, senior analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research in...

Are you sold on gold? The precious metal outperformed every major equity index in the world in 2008. The question is, can gold—and other precious metals—keep on flying? Or would buying today be buying high and selling low? Precious metals have always been intriguing to investors because they tend to hold their value. In times of geopolitical crisis or currency devaluation, for example, the value of paper money might fluctuate, but a hard asset will always be worth something. As a result, historically, precious metals have been considered a “safe haven” in times of economic and financial instability. That brings...

Will the market peak soon? Watch the dollar By Dominic Frisby Nov 16, 2009 Comments (1) Print this article On August 31st, we saw the peak for the year in the Japanese stock market. The Nikkei 225 hit its 2009 high at 10,767. It has been in decline ever since. Then in mid-September, the Toronto Stock Exchange made its 2009 peak. Next it was the Australian Stock Exchange, which peaked in mid-October at 4,897. The French and German exchanges followed a few days later. Yet last week the US indices and our own FTSE 100 somehow made it to new...

I was on the Kudlow Report on Tuesday, and Larry made a savvy point about this. He said 10% unemployment is good for stocks in the short run. Here is the logic: 10% unemployment is the number that gets everyone’s attention in Washington. Ten percent changes the national conversation. Ten percent affects the president’s popularity and that of his programs. Democrats from red districts are terrified of running on 10% unemployment in 2010. But elected officials aren’t the only ones focused on 10%. The Federal Reserve considers it, too. Like it or not, they do look at unemployment. In a...

We've come to expect intellectual dishonesty from the media elite, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, columnist for the New York Times, never disappoints. Krugman, in a Nov. 11 post on his NYTimes.com blog titled "The agony of Fox Business," made it clear he was a subscriber to the left-wing fairy tale that Fox News, and by extension the Fox Business Channel, are not pro-business. Instead - they're "pro-Republican." "Clearly, the Fox Business crew is having a very hard time," Krugman wrote. "They bill themselves as being truly pro-business - not like those leftists at CNBC. But they aren't really...

With the bond markets closed, all the attention today was on commodities and equities. Crude oil ended up 0.3% at $79.28 a barrel and gold futures hit a new record of $1119 an ounce today, nearly breaking the $1120 mark before dropping down to $1115. The three major indexes all ended higher. The Dow, which has been up every single day this month, ended at 10,293, up 47 points, the NASDAQ at 2166, up 16 points, and the S&P 500 clocked in at 1098, up 6 points. Energy and utilities took a lot of losses today, with Time Warner Cable...

Peter Costa: "The US Government Will Be Totally Bankrupt In A Year And A Half"

Albert Edwards: The Market Will Hit New Lows Next Year Joe WeisenthalNov. 10, 2009, 11:34 AM SocGen's resident uber-bear Albert Edwards is at it again: Reuters (via Paul Kedrosky): People should question the happy clappy nonsense from sellside analysts," London-based Edwards, a global strategist with SocGen's Corporate & Investment Banking group, told a media briefing. "We are not saying that people should not participate in the rallies -- that will get you fired as a fund manager -- but they should not become too convinced of the recovery," he said. Edwards is more worried about Japan in the near term...

Rosenberg: Something Big Is About To Happen The Pragmatic CapitalistNov. 10, 2009, 12:59 PM David Rosenberg notes the incredible lop sided trading environment. The dollar short/long equities trade has become the no-brainer trade and is beginning to appear crowded. David notes: Looking at the latest Commitment of Traders (COT) report, we can see some pretty interesting (and potentially disturbing) trends taking place (data for November 3rd): The only areas where the speculators (non-commercial accounts) are net short are in Treasuries and in the U.S. dollar. Everything else has massive net speculative longs and hence near-term vulnerable to a reversal. There...

Stocks are going though the roof, ever ask yourself why? With unemployment in LA at almost 15% and getting worse by the day, just what is driving the market higher you ask? Pure speculation here, but my 2cents are the government and banking system big shots have snuggled up together and are investing our monies that they have stolen from us and are investing and making more money while driving the market higher. Guess who will be left holding the bag again?

Recently the Dow Jones Industrial Average passed the psychologically significant 10,000 mark. This is an impressive feat for an index that was trading in the 6,000 range less than nine months ago. While naysayers would correctly point out that the Dow remains flat compared to 10 years ago, the run-up since last spring can't be dismissed out of hand. This is particularly true when we consider policies coming out of Washington that seem inimical to stock market and economic health. The economic picture isn't pretty: corporate bailouts that have rewarded failures at the expense of successes; a "stimulus" that has...

U.S. stocks rallied Thursday as another bout of upbeat economic data and positive results from Cisco Systems Inc. lifted the Dow Jones Industrial Average back above the 10,000 level with its biggest daily rise in points since July 15.

When The U.S. Dollar Rallies, The Stock Market Will Crash Currencies / US Dollar Nov 04, 2009 - 07:03 PM By: Mike_Whitney Interest rates. The Fed does not need slinky women in plunging necklines to peddle money. All it needs is low interest rates. When rates are pushed lower than the rate of inflation, the Fed provides a subsidy for borrowing. This is not as hard to grasp as it sounds. If I offered to give you $1.00 for very 90 cents you gave me in return, you would buy as many dollars from me as you could. The Fed...

So the Dow is down over 300 points, so 'Zero' was given credit for the up kick to the 10,000 mark will he get the blame for the down turn?

Recently, Zero Hedge presented a snapshot analysis of the various securities that made up the triparty repo agreement involving JPM, Lehman and the Fed. We uncovered numerous bankrupt companies' equities that were being pledged as collateral for what ultimately was taxpayer exposure. To our surprise, this discovery is not an exception... (snip) On two occasions last year: on March 16, 2008, and subsequently on September 14, 2008, the Federal Reserve first established what is known as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), and subsequently amended it, so that the Fed, in becoming the lender of last resort, would allow any...

A Big, Fat Stock Market Selloff By Eric Fry 10/20/09 Laguna Beach, California – Stocks prices are very, very high… Our contrarian colleagues over at The 5-Minute Forecast continuously lament…which means that the collective anxiety of investors is very, very low. Our colleagues don’t mind that a rising stock market is adding trillions of dollars to the asset side of household balance sheets. That’s good news. But the worrisome part is that a falling stock market could erase those trillions from the ledger just as quickly as they first appeared. And as our colleagues correctly point out, rising share prices,...

Sounds like it to me. These are truly remarkable words coming from inside the Fed. Reuters has the details: U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh on Tuesday called gains in Asian and U.S. stocks noteworthy and wondered whether those increases signal a return to financial normality after a wrenching crisis or raise the prospects for asset bubbles. Stock markets in a number of Asian economies have posted hefty gains in recent months, Warsh said while moderating a panel at an Asia economic policy conference hosted by the San Francisco Federal Reserve. "This is a remarkable move, certainly the U.S. has...

The financial pandemic smolders untreated beneath a hastily plugged-in life support of increased overspending that is only masking and prolonging the disease; the final collapse is getting closer. The housing collapse wrung the illusory wealth out of homes and banks as the buildings and their mortgages returned to the real world together. Suddenly bereft of wealth, homeowners cut spending; banks froze. Without buyers, business contracted, hemorrhaging ex-employees who spend even less. Instead of letting the sick banks clean out the worthless loans and securities that infect them, thereafter dying or returning to health as might be, the government has transfused...

We are indebted to our good friend Dennis Gartman for putting one of our concerns into print. The S&P 500 has gained 61% since its low in March of this year. While this sort of rebound is not unprecedented, you have to go back quite a few years to get rough parallels. The October 19th issue of Barron’s notes that this rally resembles the 1937-38 rally that ended in tears, ditto the 1974-75 market which was followed by a sharp sell-off. What concerns us is that this rally appears to be without foundation in the “real” economy. Jobs are being...

What a marvelous flimflam! So obvious...and yet so effective! It's a pleasure to watch. Yesterday, the Dow soared over they 10,000 mark. If it keeps going at this rate – up 144 points yesterday – it will soon equal the post-'29 bounce. All we need is two more days and we're there. Oil rose over $75. Gold closed the day at $1,064, after a big move to the upside over the last few days. And the dollar fell – to just $1.49 per euro. The reason for yesterday's big move is announced on the front page of almost every financial...

The contrasts are too stark to ignore. Stocks are supercharging ahead, while home prices are stalled and likely to dip further. Emerging markets are eating the developed world's lunch. Asset prices in general are rising far above the economic reality that would rationally support them. Main Street Americans are struggling to pay their bills, while Wall Street executives are getting record bonuses. Two Americas; trust me it's more than just a campaign slogan. It's the cold hard reality. The dichotomy continues. Stocks, gold and oil all continue their amazing climb as the dollar descends to new lows. A smart move...

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaching 10,000, Americans are feeling wealthier. Unfortunately, roughly a third of the increase simply reflects the falling dollar, that American goods and assets are becoming cheaper to the rest of the world. Just as a lower dollar makes it more attractive for foreigners to buy American goods, it also makes it a better deal for foreigners to buy stock in American companies. Over the course of this year, as the value of the dollar rose until the beginning of March, the stock market fell. As the dollar fell during the rest of the year,...

Amos 8:5 ". . . Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?"

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. stocks rallied Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average pushing above 10000 for the first time in a year on better-than-expected quarterly reports from Intel and JPMorgan Chase, and as improved retail sales data lifted Caterpillar and a wave of other industrials. Since hitting a 2009 closing low of 6547.05 March 9, the Dow has tacked on 53% in the past seven months. For Wednesday, the index closed up 144.80 points, or 1.47%, at 10015.86, marking its biggest one-day gain since Aug. 31. The measure hadn't traded at 10000 since Oct. 7, 2008, and hadn't closed...

How many times have we heard President Barack Obama or high-ranking members of his administration lament the fact that the president "inherited" a recession? Quite a few, if anyone is keeping track. Now the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has broken through the 10,000-point barrier. But that begs the question given the inevitable credit Obama will get from the media and other supporters for this rally, should former President George W. Bush get some of the credit if Obama is so willing to blame him for the collapse? It's a question Neil Cavuto put to the test on his Oct....

Billionaire investor Carl Ichan gets it. He sees the volatile nature of the current markets, and the potential for a double-dip recession. There is no indication that Ichan watches the money supply or understands business cycle theory, so his views, in the way they dovetail with mine, are very instructive. How could he possibly come up with similar views? Because he really watches the markets in detail and knows what is moving in what direction relative to other situations. As I outlined in my post, How To Monitor the Economy, the way to follow an economy is not by watching...

The weak dollar plays a crucial role in the stock market's recent climb with dollar-based commodity stocks including energy, basic materials, mining and multinationals all benefiting from the greenback's decline. "Investors appear anxious to move funds to hard commodities and commodity- based equities as a hedge against the falling dollar," Fred Dickson, chief market strategist, Davidson Cos., wrote in a research note. "We continue to look for the stock market to remain volatile and remain closely tied to the daily movement of the dollar," Dickson added. Helping trigger another sell-off in the dollar and rally in commodities was news overnight that Australia...

CAUTION: Stock Market Crash /Collapse Dead Ahead Say Faber, Rogers, Dent And Celente Stock-Markets / Financial Crash Oct 02, 2009 - 09:33 AM By: Mac_Slavo After a massive upswing in US stocks over the last six months, the recent rally may finally be coming to an end. It seems that the trend of rising stocks on bad or better than expected news may be in a reversal, as evidenced by market participants’ caution over the last couple of weeks. For those that follow contrarian investors like Marc Faber, Jim Rogers, Gerald Celente and Harry Dent, this should come as no...

The price of virtually everything — from stocks to bonds to the food on your plate — is now influenced by high-frequency trading. This type of trading might seem mysterious or complicated, but it's generally just a fancy name for an old and boring practice: market making. High-frequency trading effectively becomes market making simply by offering to both buy an asset at a given price and sell it a fraction higher. High-frequency traders just change these prices much faster than ever before — mere nanoseconds between orders — reacting in real time to how other investors trade with them. Many...

It is only a number — the stock market equivalent of an appliance chain’s millionth customer, or the gazillionth hamburger served at McDonald’s. Still, the Dow, which closed up 124.17 points, at 9,789.36, on Monday, is within reach of 10,000. Who would have thought? At the depths of Wall Street’s crisis, when traders were despairing and shares of Citigroup were trading for just over a dollar, Dow 5,000 seemed a likelier prospect than this. But now, one of the most-watched measures of the financial world is on the cusp of jumping back to five-digit territory. That does not mean the...

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With Wall Street continuing to recover, so are the prospects for this year's bonus season. As early as June, experts were speculating that incentive payments for U.S. banks and securities firms could rebound sharply given the resurgence in certain parts of their business. Now with analysts predicting impressive third-quarter numbers from some of the nation's largest financial firms, big bonuses for top Wall Street talent seems increasingly certain."

Insight: Equities carry too much risk By David Rosenberg Published: September 23 2009 17:00 The banker J.P. Morgan was fond of saying: “I never buy at lows, I never sell at the highs, I play the middle 60 per cent.” Well, from our lens, we are well past that middle 60 per cent point of this bear market rally. At the lows in the equity market in March, the S&P 500 was de facto pricing in a 2.5 per cent decline in real gross domestic product and $50 of operating earnings for the year. Guess what? Far from being grossly...

Investors were encouraged by the Fed's latest improved assessment of the economy, but not enough to propel the Dow Jones industrial average past 10,000. Stocks closed lower Wednesday as a brief rally followed the Fed's economic statement and then faded. The Dow came within 82 points of crossing 10,000 for the first time since October, but ended the day with a loss of 81.

How about all three. Faber released another provocative newsletter this month that has a little grist for investor of all stripes.

The stock market's recent rally is likely to run out of steam soon and equity prices may collapse again, Jeffrey Gundlach, chief investment officer at Los Angeles-based mutual-fund giant TCW Group Inc., said Wednesday. The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index is "extremely unlikely" to climb above 1,100, before collapsing again, he said during a conference call. "You've made 90% of the money you're gonna make in this rally," Gundlach said, advising investors to sell on strength when the S&P 500 is above 1,000.

Stocks aren't the only things falling--America's confidence in Wall Street and banks is plummeting too. Last year this time, the markets nosedived after the Lehman bankruptcy on Sept.14, 2008. One year later, how has public opinion fared? How do Americans feel about the institutions that have dominated the headlines in our cascading financial crisis? Fortunately for students of public opinion, several survey organizations have been asking identical questions about our confidence in the financial world for decades. In 1977, Harris asked about people "in charge of running Wall Street," and 19% of those polled expressed a great deal of confidence....

For all the talk of another big drop coming, the pieces are in place for 3 years of 15% annual increases for the giants of the blue-chip index. It's been exactly a year since the government kicked a smoldering financial crisis into a roaring blaze by letting Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ, news, msgs) collapse. Observers this week are memorializing the mistake, but investors need to look forward -- and what they should see is that the government's later reaction to its error may have actually laid the groundwork for the greatest bull market of the decade. For while it seems unlikely...

Since its birth, the United States has grappled with the problem of an over-mighty financial sector. With the exception of Alexander Hamilton, the Founders' vision was of a republic of self-reliant farmers and small-town tradesmen. The last thing they wanted was for New York to become the London of the New World—a mammon-worshiping metropolis in which financial capital and political capital were rolled into one. That was why there was such resistance to creating a central bank, and why—despite two attempts—we have no Bank of the United States to match the Bank of England. That was why populists railed against...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has climbed nearly 45 percent since hitting a March 9 low. The S&P 500 (S&P) is up nearly 53 percent. And the NASDAQ (NASDAQ) has soared a whopping 61 percent since the March bottom. But that rally has some analysts shaking their heads. Art Cashin, a CNBC regular who also makes frequent appearances on CBS and NBC news programs to offer insight on the financial markets, was skeptical. He told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Sept. 11 he got some of his money out of the market and got burnt, but is still scratching his...

Inquiring minds are wondering How Overpriced Is The S&P? It's an excellent question given bulls feel the market is headed much higher while the bears feel the opposite after a remarkable 50% rally. Let's start off with a look at the financial sector where Allowances for Loan and Lease Losses (ALLL) have plunged even though non-performing loans soar. To understand the importance of ALLL, inquiring minds are reading a description of Allowances for Loan & Lease Losses. Businesses try to predict, on an ongoing basis, the amount of loss in their accounts. They take periodic charges to earnings to better...

The game was up. Gathered in a first-floor conference room at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a huddle of senior Lehman Brothers executives realised that their firm was bust. A last-ditch effort to get Barclays to buy the 185-year-old Wall Street bank had failed. The British were not coming. Bankruptcy was the only card left to play.

A breakdown in communications at the highest level between the US and the UK led to the shock collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers in September last year, a Guardian/Observer investigation has revealed. The downfall of Lehman, which triggered the biggest banking crisis since the Great Depression, came after a rescue bid by the high street bank Barclays failed to materialise.

TALK IS CHEAP. Trading index options is usually not. As pundits everywhere debate about the trajectory of the economic recovery, investors are laying out big dollars to buy defensive index options. If the global and U.S. economies recover in the shape of a V -- down fast, up fast -- the hedges will probably ultimately function as emblems of balancing risk and reward. If the economies follow a W-shaped recovery -- a view espoused by the famous hedge-fund manager, Paul Tudor Jones, and Bill Gross, the bond maven -- the hedges will offset stock losses from another sharp drop in...

SNIPPET: "A bomb has exploded outside the Athens stock exchange, slightly injuring a female passer-by and damaging the building, police say. The bomb - which set fire to several cars - was hidden in a stolen van. Another bomb went off outside a government building in Thessaloniki, causing minor damage and no injuries. The blasts may be the work of a Greek extremists' group, Revolutionary Struggle, says the BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens. Earlier this year the group claimed responsibility for two bombs aimed at the American Citibank group. Flying glass A warning of the Athens explosion was telephoned to...

A private sector report on unemployment gave investors new reason to fret about what is widely seen as the biggest problem facing the economy. The ADP National Employment Report found that employment fell by 298,000 in August following a revised loss of 360,000 jobs in July. The losses were the smallest since September 2008 but more than analysts had expected.

Whatever the reason(s) for the decline, this may be the beginning of what many are calling an overdue correction after a big run, and Tuesday's decline is certain to revive stories about the market's historic struggles in September. The Dow has lost 1.3% on average since 1928 in September, making it the market's worst month, according to Bloomberg.

"Everything is going a little crazy" lately, he continues, citing the huge volume spike last week in so- called zombie stocks like AIG, Citigroup, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "The entire market is one massive short squeeze."

You have to wonder when you see statistics like this (through 9:30 this morning): Remove SPY, ETFC and LEHMQ (none of which trade on the NYSE) from the list and you get 606 million shares. How many shares have traded in total with one hour in? 1.491 billion. Forty percent of the volume is comprised of four used dogfood stocks, just as we've seen for the last couple of weeks - all people passing shares back and forth among each other, many of it being "computer HFT games." The other used dog-food stocks (LEHMQ and ETFC) are really no better;...