I am short, Im staying short, but in the last week when the dow was under 17700 I took out long positions in XIV, SOXL and TNA the last week when everything was dropping, I was down on XIV by a good amount when it dropped to $37 but I held on, sold off 1/4 of that position this morning and holding the rest in another account. That position is enough to keep my portfolio pretty flat during this nearly 200 point rally. When I say risk free Im being what they call sarcastic, its a risk free market, look at china, did you read anything they have done the last 2 weeks to prop up their markets, if you haven't go read it, thats why this market is totally risk free, when you have governments and central banks propping up a stock market thats down 30% in 3 weeks can you tell me where risk lies? Can you tell me where risk lies when greece gets A 3rd bailout in less than 5 years, where is the risk, with the markets totally distorted is where the risk lies, but no one sees it, they only see the free bailouts and the QE and the propping of the China stock markets as being a beautiful thing...
Be baffled no more. IMO, it is easier for fearful people to hope than to take action to fix things. I suspect that millions of people sense deep inside something is wrong (and fear possible future outcomes) but feel powerless to fix their own situation. Comfort is available 24 hours a day as bread and wonderous circuses appear. In the 1930s a madman appeared to offer hope and a plan that sounded good to the unemployed. Welcome to our new religion.
Scanning the news I found these two scary articles: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...i-austerity-parties-sweep-local-election.html http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/34287 It is very comforting that European banks have been thoroughly stress tested. Does Spain help contribute to the Greece bailout? Sadly, Merkel looks a bit stress tested to me in some recent photos. Perhaps a north/south Euro would work better?
Anything could happen at this point in time. The Greece situation will never go away....the Greek people cannot take one more ounce of austerity. I predict rioting there before the end of the year. Next up: Spain, Portugal, Puerto Rico. It's just gonna be wave after wave of crisis until the IMF comes to the rescue and initiates a round of inflation to counter the deflationary forces now in place.
They would be the proverbial "end of the rope"....lender of last resort. If they fail, world wide economic armageddon will follow.
The lenders to the Greeks are just silly. Greece has been in economic crisis of one sort or another an astonishing half of all it's years since independence.
US and EU will keep bailing out everything, slowly sinking in debt and becoming morally bankrupt ("my debts are not mine, why should I pay them"). All the while, China is rising until US/EU will wake up to realize they're irrelevant.
Unfortunately it very much looks like it. Latest numbers are a 137 billion trade surplus for China. And we are talking about a 50bil fund.