Wall St. ends up on Greek hopes ahead of debt deadline

So as of 5 p.m. Detroit time, Greece became the first country in modern history to default when the midnight deadline for extension of critical loans passed in Athens.  Well ... kind of sort of, but not really.

Wall St. tumbles as investors flee equities on Greek debt crisis

Tomorrow is official default day for Greece but today was the day everything fell through the floor, the Dow diving a massive 350 points, the biggest drop since October, wiping out all the year's gains.  Yesterday the government ordered the banks shuttered for Sunday and Monday so the only banking that could be done was with ATMs, and there were instant lines around the block for those.  But the ECB was committed to supplying emergency cash to the banks so that there would be no panic.  Things were relatively calm yesterday but today the ECB reversed its position and shut off the flow of cash.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 6.26.15 (+ bonuses)

Curiously, this weekend's summation contains no mention of the Greece crisis, even though the market more or less revolved around that particular issue all last week.  Also no mention of what I thought was the most important news of the week that received only a glancing mention in the financial media (and none in the mainstream media) and that was the revised Q1 Commerce Dept report that found GDP had shrunk by a mere 2/10% instead of the previously reported 7/10% (which had also been a revision from the originally stated nearly 2%).

S&P 500 ends down week with flat session, semis fall

Friday, 6-26-15  4:15 a.m.
       I got home too late tonight to make this a Friday posting but, given the day's news, we really should wait one more day for an update anyway.  That's because today Greece rejected a 5 month extension on its bailout so now the EU will meet on Saturday to determine whether to kick Greece out.  Sentiment about what the fallout of such a drastic action would be ranges all the way from total economic catastrophe to nothing.  My guess is we'll be in the same position this time tomorrow as we are right now.  Since everyone is waiting on Saturday's meeting, the real update will be then.  Today, volume was average and the Dow moved up a modest 56 points.  Whether this will come tumbling down or nothing at all after Saturday's meeting, we'll see.

Saturday, 6-27-15
My prediction that nothing much would really change today pretty much happened.  Today was supposed to be drop-dead for Greece and after today's continued deadlock in Brussels the EU is now assuming default come Tuesday.

Stocks, oil slip with eyes on Greece; hospital shares jump

For the second day, yesterday's good news that the Q1 economy had not really shrunk left no impression as all eyes are on the impending Greek tragedy as it unfolds.  On Monday, everyone thought an agreement was imminent.  Today the EU complains that the Greeks had gone back on their own proposals while Greece's Finance Minister says the opposite -- that it is the European creditors who have now changed their demands, which have now gone from the unreasonable to the insulting.  The EU, ECB, and IMF are firmly of the position that Greece must agree to more austerity, whereas the Greeks insist that they have done everything they've been asked to do but that the creditors are now upping their requirements at the last minute.  Both sides are playing chicken in what is supposed to be a regional conflict but is quickly going global.  Greece feels they are being made an example and that it is Europe's purpose to humiliate them, something they have vowed will not happen.  The creditors are simply insisting that good business is good business and that Greece has to learn this.  The new drop-dead deadline is now Saturday.  How many times have we been through this?  Who wants to bet on who's going to blink?  (My bet is the EU!)  Today Wall Street's bet was to the tune of another 75 points down on the Dow.  Volume was near average at 5.9 billion.

Wall Street ends broadly lower on Greek debt concerns

Such a wild day as once again the impact of the situation with Greece drove the Dow down 178 points since today the EU decided it wasn't so crazy about Monday's proposal after all, sweeping changes now being demanded.  The cynical view now is that Greece may very well default and this may cause a market correction in the range of 5 to 10%.  The quote for the day is from Phil Orlando at Federated Investors, "insiders seem less confident (that a deal will be reached) than they were a few days ago."  Hey Phil, don't you mean than they were just yesterday?  That's right, read yesterday's paper.  Just one day ago the market was still flush with optimism about avoiding a Greek default.  But today's events were nothing at all unusual.  Investor sentiment swinging back and forth on practically a daily basis has become pandemic.  But while everyone was all a titter about Europe, today's Commerce Dept. revised report that the U.S. economy had not contracted hardly at all in Q1 went largely unnoticed and it should have been the big news.  Maybe this will be factored in tomorrow.  Meanwhile, trading continued very light at 5.5 billion so again it was really "no worries."

Wall Street edges up in quiet session; Nasdaq ends at record

The market is settling in to the notion that the Greek issue is no longer a matter of concern and thus the market very gently eased up a mere 24 points after its recent triple-digit gains.  Gains probably would have been more robust had it not been for that old albatross, the strengthening dollar, which today rose over 1% once again weighing on the profits of multinationals.  In a bit of contrariness, oil also went up 1% to $61 per barrel.  Which is just to show that, the Efficient Markets Theory notwithstanding, quite frequently things do not go by the book.  Once again, volume was well below average at 5.4 billion.

Wall Street rises on Greece optimism, Nasdaq ends at record

Friday they all said let's wait until Monday to see what happens with the EU meeting to cut Greece loose.  Today hopes are much higher that there will be a deal by Friday bolstered by a new proposal put forth today by Greece which the EU has found not entirely repugnant.  There is much wheeling and dealing to do in the next two days so now all eyes are on Wednesday.  However, at least from the market's point of view, optimism on Greece is back and so the Dow shot up 104 points and most of the smart dealers believe that there will be a deal by week's end.  As has been the case so often before, most investors remain on the sidelines with quite light volume of 5.3 billion.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events 6.19.15 ( + 2 bonuses)

This Sunday's bonus includes a valuable list of investment resources on the web (including links) which Ritholtz finds to be most useful, and a very succinct 7 minute video course on "The Efficient Markets Hypothesis," that intro to investment theory that is the core of all B-school curricula and which seeks to answer the question of whether mutual funds managers actually know what they're doing or are just throwing darts.  Happy 1st day of summer!

Twitter Transition

Instead of another extensive reading list, this Saturday I offer a brief essay giving a different kind of perspective on Twitter.  Personally, I've been tweeting for several years now and though I find it to be a fun exercise to compress a meaningful communication into the 140 characters (including spaces), it's really for me been much more of a novelty than a useful tool.  When I first started, I attended a seminar in which the Twitter gospel was being preached, and much like the Internet gospel of the late 1990s where everyone had to be in on it or lose out (despite the fact that no one was yet making money at it), the message being preached was any business had to have a consistent Twitter presence to be successful.  Such a presence was defined at the time as a minimum of five tweets per day.  I had my doubts even then about why any enterprise would devote the manpower to such an effort, let alone why anyone would devote energy to reading all that.  Since then my doubts have been confirmed.  I have never found a company that does anywhere near five tweets per day, or even for that matter five per month, and yet they seem to be doing very well despite that.  So I found this essay to be kind of refreshing with its prediction that Twitter is just another passing fad, a prediction part of me hopes turns out to be true.

Wall St falls as Greek deadline looms; indexes up for week

Today became "wait until Monday" day as the Dow fell 100 points and everyone sits on needles on pins over the Greece crisis.  For months now, the market has been having a mild nervous breakdown in anticipation of a Grexit.  Suddenly yesterday everything was way up again as investors had a change of heart and decided that Greece exiting the Eurozone would not be such a grand tragedy after all.  Today, the sentiment of impending tragedy became an issue again as talks failed still once again, even if most experts have a consensus that it's not going to happen.  As has occurred frequently before, a new deadline has been laid down -- the EU meets Monday to discuss whether Greece should exit and start printing its own currency again.  Yes, it's happened before, and then there's always more extensions and, in the end, the EU and Greece finally agree, for this month anyway, and then the whole ballgame starts up again next month.  Today's market sentiment is that everyone would just as soon see this end, even if it does mean a Grexit.  Thus, in anticipation of Monday, the market sunk.  All week long, the Greeks have been withdrawing euros from the banks like crazy and the ECB has had to boost emergency funding.  Where and when will it end?  Today's high volume of 7.9 billion shares would suggest that it's expected to end on Monday.  Doubt it, but stay tuned.

Nasdaq at record as Wall Street runs on strong data; Greece eyed

The Street with a 2nd day to digest the dovish news yesterday from the Fed zoomed up a whopping 180 points on the Dow helped along by a whole string of other terrific news, some of historic proportions.  In addition to new hopes over Greece as the EU announced (then denied) concessions, consumer prices had their biggest boost in two years, jobless claims hit a 15 year low, and factory activity a 6 month high.  But none of this compared to the historic news from the Nasdaq which today reached a new high that finally put it in the black from the dot-com bubble for the first time since 2000.  Today, even Greece could not dampen anyone's spirits.  For the first time, investors no longer eye a Grexit as a trigger to global catastrophe but has now lowered it into the category of "no big deal" as the new sentiment seems to be that even if the unlikely does happen, the EU can probably handle it.  Despite all this positive news and sentiment, at 6.2 billion volume was only slightly elevated from recent averages.

Wall Street ends higher in choppy post-Fed trading

Investors tried hedging their bets today with quite the sell off mid-day anticipating bad news from today's Fed announcement.  When in fact the monthly policy statement turned out to be exactly what the Fed had always said it would be, the tide turned and bolted up 160 points between 2 and 3 p.m. before finally settling down to a 31 point gain on the Dow at close.  The market was particularly pleased by the Fed's statement that the hikes would be more modest than previously forecast.  With a hike by year-end now more certain than ever, Wall Street is now looking at the bright side.  If yields fall, the high dividend stocks become more attractive and thus we saw a spurt of activity boosting prices of companies that pay big and steady dividends.  Volume was in line with recent averages at 6.1 billion.

Wall Street up with eyes on Greece, Fed; M&A supports

When the market sinks, investors find reasons to fear a Greek default and the Fed.  This happened in the last two days.  When the markets soars, which is what happened today as the Dow rose 113 points, it's because the market took the same facts it's always had and now finds a positive spin.  So today the Greek finance minister told our Treasury Secretary that Athens aimed to reach a deal (something we've always known).  Meanwhile, investors now see the anticipated and feared September Fed rate hike as a likely trigger for more M&A activity (always good news).  So the market jumped and today's experts now believe that the "Grexit" has been overpriced and no surprises are expected from either Greece or the Fed.  (Of course, it is highly likely that these same sentiments would have been reversed had the Dow dropped, even with the exact same set of facts.)  As has been the trend, volume was light (5.5 billion) so there are still few investors driving prices.  Tomorrow is the end of the June Fed meeting.  The news is likely to be exactly as expected, yet it's still a flip of the coin whether this will cause a rally or a panic.

Greek angst weighs on Wall Street; health stocks rise

There was just a whole lot that went awry today to send the Dow down 107 points, not the least of which was the reporting.  Per the financial media, the panic sell off today was triggered by yesterday's collapse of the Greek talks with the EU.  Actually, as I reported last week, that actually happened last Thursday which caused the 140 point sell off on Friday but was also largely written off as a political gambit on the part of the EU.  Today's plummet was also attributed to reports that the negotiations had become even more testy today.  The problem with this theory is that the drop came right out the gate before the day's negotiations had even begun.  In fact the big drop at 9:30 a.m. was to the tune of 200 points and then just kept rising all day after that.  Thus, whatever was going on with today's talks had no impact on the stock market at all.  What did impact it?  There was a ton of welcome news about new acquisitions in the burgeoning healthcare sector which, had it not been for the early drop over Greece, there would have been a 100 point gain today instead of an over 100 point loss.  It is clear that irrationality continues to drive the market as today's sentiment is continued fear over the long talked about "Grexit" even though all the smart money says that won't happen.  As I mentioned a while back, even Greece's own polls strongly demonstrate that the Greek people themselves are solidly against this.  Today's sell off really should have already been factored in to investment decisions.  So it goes, the pattern continues to be these wild rises and falls but still on relatively modest volume of 5.8 billion which means most investors remain in "wait and see" mode.

Succinct Summation of Weeks Events 6.12.15

For a change this week the one-page birds-eye view of the world is a brief one -- this time 6 positives and just three negatives.  At least the positives continue to outweigh the negatives.  I gave away the weekend's bonus yesterday so this time the "reading" will be quick.  As far as the negatives go, he's counting the recent light volumes as being a negative indicating anemic participation, but it could just as easily be taken as a positive, indicating that the irrational swings in the market are being caused by just a small number of investors meaning that they don't mean that much.  Hope everyone had a great Flag Day!

10 Weekend Reads

It's been a while since I've provided a weekend reading list, so here goes.  I'm personally curious about the final item regarding a new study establishing a link between lead exposure and the rising crime rates in adults who were children raised in that era.

Wall Street falls as Greece crisis unresolved; energy shares dip

Yesterday I mentioned my surprise that all the good news from the last couple of days hadn't caused another panic sell off over Fed hikes.  I also mentioned that today all that may change again.  Today it did indeed.  Today the market once again remembered the Greece crisis and the falling price of oil and sold again to the tune of 140 points on the Dow.  Even though the Greek bail out talks are considered to be largely political at this stage, concerns have nevertheless risen again and the focus is once again on next week's Fed meeting where the long held suspicion of a September hike is expected to be finally officially announced.  Still, such concerns remain in the minority since, at a middling 5 billion shares, volume evidences that most investors continue to stay on the sidelines.

Wall Street climbs after retail sales data; healthcare up

The Dow up 38 points today and back in positive territory for the year on an onslaught of good news from the retail and healthcare sectors as well as increased optimism on consumer spending.  As things have been going lately, such robust data should have triggered another sell off on Fed fears but somehow for the last couple days the market isn't thinking Fed right now.  In fact the news from Greece that debt talks had momentarily collapsed didn't even cause a blink.  Go figure.  Tomorrow all this may very well change again. At 5.8 billion, volume was right in line with averages.

Wall Street climbs on tech, financials gains, optimism on Greece

Since yesterday's flavor of the day was pessimism over an impending Greek default, with all the seesawing going on these days, it would only make sense that today's flavor would be sudden optimism over same.  Add that to the continuation of yesterday's boost in both the tech and financial sectors, and the Dow had a very steady lift today up a big 236 points.  (And they didn't even have to wait until next week's Fed report to decide the world was rosy again!)  It's all the more significant since all this was also done on above average trading of 6.5 billions shares.

Wall Street ends flat; S&P 500 snaps three-day losing streak

One of the many financial newsletters that are out there had as its headline today, "So Many Worries, So Little Time," suggesting that there was so much bad news out there that most investors would think that the only rational course of action in this market is to sell everything and be all in cash.  (Not gold; gold is doing worse than even real estate the last several years.)  But today's news is yet another demonstration that this view of the market could not be further from the truth.  The market ended just about even after first losing about 50 points, then gaining, then losing again to end down just 2.5 points.  Why all the back and forth?  Because there is so much good news out there that the old interest rate hike fire has been stoked again.  Not only were financials up but job openings surged to a record high along with an increase in small business confidence.  When even the skeptics who run the nation's small businesses see hope on the horizon, that's gotta be good.  So today's expert from Prudential Financial states, "It's a market that's searching for a rationale at this point ... and waiting for next week's (Fed) meeting."  There is no rationale to search for.  The fact is investors are suffering from irrational panic in the midst of an onslaught of good news so the only thing the market should be searching for is some good old-fashioned common sense.  And if anyone thinks that next week's Fed meeting is going to make any difference at all, they haven't been paying attention for the last few years.  But as I have already pointed out a number of times, none of this much matters.  Volume was just below recent light averages at 5.9 billion, which means the same players are making all the trades and, until that changes I say, "No worries, and we've got all kinds of time!"

Wall Street ends lower, Dow slips into loss for 2015

The Dow down again, this time nearly 83 points, again due to anxiety over issues that should have been factored into investment decisions long ago, namely Greece and a September interest rate hike.  The flavor of the day is that the market once again believes in the possibility of a Greek default, despite the lack of evidence and the number of times we've been down this road before.  The dive is also a continued reaction to Friday's stellar jobs report as market anxiety heightens of what now appears to be a probable September rate hike, even though the Fed has been on the record all year that September was the likely month in which the first rate hike in ten years would occur.  And once again, we have the comfort of knowing that most of this is much ado about nothing as volume was exceedingly light at 5.5 billion, meaning most participants continue to watch and not move.

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events for 6/5/15 (+ 2 bonuses)

It's time once again for the Sunday wrap and bonuses.  It's been a busy week, 10 positives and 7 negatives this time.  Two very cool bonuses this time, one is from today's Ritholtz Washington Post column with advice on how to prepare for the coming tumult (as if what we've been experiencing for the past several years has not qualified as "tumult.")  Pay particular attention to the wisdom he imparts in the final paragraph, "I am not making a forecast that a crash is going to occur.  My best guess is that we are somewhere in the fifth or sixth inning of a long secular bull market that could last for 10 to 15 years.  Perhaps it's only the third inning - it's June, and the New York Mets have a winning record.  That should tell you that anything can happen."
       Bonus #2 is a very instructive 13 minute video by celebrated market guru Peter Bernstein about the nature of managing risk, something to which we are all very devoted.  Hope everyone had a great weekend.

The Search for Meaning in Jobs Numbers

In his column yesterday, Barry Ritholtz sought to contribute some perspective to the very positive May jobs report.  It contains the usual cautionary warnings that these reports seem to be compiled almost at random subject to constant revisions upwards and downwards.  This particular article also sheds some nice perspective on the nature of this particular recovery and why it is not at all unusual that it is behaving quite differently than other past recoveries.  There is much truth here.  I'm not saying that I disagree.  I would just like to add my own cautionary note that these positive reports being called into question is not at all uncommon though you rarely see the experts taking issue with and being critical of negative reports.  So just why is it that Wall Street seems to thrive so much on pessimism?  A thought for the weekend.

Strong jobs report gives Wall St. second straight losing week

The lunacy continues with the Dow dropping 80 points right out the gate, then soaring 120 points in the next couple of hours before beginning a gradual descent all afternoon to close 56 points down.  Can you guess what happened?  Indeed, as was forecast yesterday, the market feared the May jobs report was going to be very strong with an expected gain of 225,000 new jobs.  In fact, it came in remarkably strong at 280,000 in addition to which March and April numbers were revised upwards another 32,000 jobs for a total of 312,000 new jobs.  The unemployment rate rose slightly from 5.4 to 5.5% only because there is so much good news out there that many more jobless have now entered the market with new confidence in their prospects.  So at first there was elation that the recovery was humming along so well, then the inevitable realization that always takes place after good news that a September rate hike now seems rather certain.  Bear in mind that for months now the market has been expecting and prepared for a September hike, that the real fear was for a June hike, which is obviously now a non-issue.  Thus the fearmongers drove the market down 176 points from its high, especially when the President of the New York Fed confirmed the long held policy position that the economy could indeed handle a hike later this year.  So the seesaw continues but, happily, with the same players as volume was right on average at 6.2 billion.  There are a small number of players who are moving stocks right now as the rest remain on the sidelines waiting for things to settle down, which will likely not be for a while.

Wall St. drops before jobs report; Greece worries linger

Another day of lunacy as the Dow plunged 170 points and for what?  Everyone's afraid that tomorrow's jobs report is going to be too good, the forecast being for 225,000 new jobs showing the economy is still steadily on the path to recovery.  So what is the problem with Wall Street?  Investors still haven't decided whether they want a recovery or not, since a recovery would mean eventual higher interest rates which many fear (irrationally so IMHO) will bring this historic bull market come crashing down.  Yes, the Fed has been consistent in its policy statements that interest rates will remain low until the economy is well on its own feet again.  Many even blame the near-zero interest rates for the weaknesses in the economy, hypocritically the same people who scream bloody murder and begin panic selling every time the Fed even hints at a hike.  The buy-and-holders are winning this contest hands down and the professionals hate that.  Adding to the lunacy was new fears about Greece.  Even though yesterday the market lauded Greece, even with the statement that their debt payment would be delayed, today suddenly that same statement turned an optimistic market negative again.  The good news is that the same people are buying and selling as volume remained right in line with averages at 6.3 billion.

Wall St ends up; financials gain with bond yields

The Dow zoomed up 150 points in morning trading before reversing course all afternoon and closing with just under half of that - a 64 point gain.  As the market has been swinging wildly back and forth over Greece, down on pessimistic days, up on optimism, this morning's exuberance was again a direct result of the market once again hopeful about an impending agreement between Greece and its creditors.  And it should come as no surprise that, even though yesterday's dip was partially due to fears over the recent rise of bond yields hurting stocks, today the market decided that rising bond yields were actually a good thing.  As today's expert stated, "yields going higher is a net positive for all of the financials."  Another bit of good news was yet another statement from the Fed that the U.S. economy during April and May was expected to show continued moderate growth, reversing Q1's losses.  None of this had much impact, though, as volume continued right along with recent averages at 6 billion shares.

Wall Street ends down; utilities fall as bond yields jump

Another see-saw day with the Dow dropping over a hundred points right out the gate only to recover and be up over 50 points by 2 pm, then diving again to close with a relatively modest 28 point loss.  So what was behind all this adrenaline?  First there was the bad news -- utilities falling, bond yields rising -- then the good news that Greece was close to a deal with its creditors.  But, as has been happening frequently lately, before day's end investors get the willies again about interest rate hikes and start selling like crazy.  And again this was despite a statement from a Fed board member that "the economy's recent poor performance may be more than transitory," or in other words, no rate hikes for a while.  And still again, today's sell off can be more or less ignored as it was on considerably lighter than usual volume, only 5.5 billion shares.  Everyone's on the fence waiting for Friday's employment numbers.

Wall Street edges up after recent losses, mixed data

On a spate of good news, the Dow was up nearly 100 points as late as 3 p.m.  Among the good vibes was rising manufacturing growth and a surge in construction spending.  But it was just enough good news to once again give the market the willies about interest rate hikes and thus in the last hour the Dow dove to close 30 points down.  This was despite a statement from the President of the Boston Fed, "the Fed is in no position to start raising interest rates."  Adding to the sell off was the looming Greek default as the beleaguered country missed its own Sunday deadline.  Volume was just a little below recent averages at 5.9 billion.