You have it all wrong The funds that move the markets DONT care about the credit crunch or the falling dollar cause there is NO compelling evidence that any of those things are a big deal. The 'credit crisis' seems to be confined to financial institutions. There is tons of credit, consumer spending, and economic growth in emerging markets. The cheap dollar is actually helping the US economy.
We go up 400 tomorrow since IBM beat. Sounds logical to me. Heck, lets go up 1,000 and force the Fed to raise rates. Edit: EBAY also beat, lets extend that rally to 1,500!!!
keep thinking the market only moves in 1 Direction, im sure you think these rallies are sustainable, well guess again, these types of moves usually happen in a bear market. And based on todays rally and "great" earnings you would think there was no such thing as a weak economy.....this market is looking EXTREMELY IRRATIONAL AGAIN....EXTREMELY.... there is a commodity bubble, inflation across the globe, food crisis in nearly every country outside the US, a dollar that cannot find a bottom,GDP growth nearing 0%, loss of jobs and a consumer who is in the most debt they have ever been in..... tell me where the CATALYST IS, PLEASE......bernanke is done cutting rates, he cannot save the markets any longer, show me your next catalyst that is going to take the markets up 20%+ from here...... Im sure for every positive you can find I can find 2 negatives about this economy.....
You just don't get it. Because you continue "yammering" about what you perceive is the economic backdrop, you continue to show TRADERS on this website that you have little idea of what makes the market "tick". The mere fact that you continue to question these 30 point moves in the SPX without making a dime is VERY, VERY, TELLING. Traders trade stocks. They don't trade the Economy. Much of the time, the two are VERY different. You obviously are incapable of understanding that very significant point.
im just asking for the next catalyst to 14k+ since you are such a bull I would like to know what will prop the market back up to 14k+
I have to agree with just about everyone on this thread: the market *shouldn't* be going higher based on fundamentals, and yet the wide-open spigot of liquidity seems to be finding a home in stocks. For me a determining factor has been the drying up of stocks making fresh new lows since January. (I charted this earlier today: http://rurl.org/ode to illustrate). Amidst considerable bearish sentiment and no lack of scary news, fewer issues have been sustaining price weakness. Does that mean we're off to a new, rip-roaring bull market? I have my doubts. Still, even a stiff bout of short-covering could take this market for a nice move. A lot of eyes are on that 1390 - 1400 long-term resistance in ES. Best of luck to all, and thanks for the forum. Brett Steenbarger
Since when is the market rational? I'll continue to trade what I see... but in the back of my mind, I can't help but think we're going to see a huge plunge in the near term. Don't know when... but my gut is telling me we ain't in Kansas anymore.
People were saying the exact same things just 4-5 months ago, saying we're at a bottom (@ 13k Dow) and we're going back up to 14,000. With the cost of this housing bubble, why would a bottom be made just from the highs at 14,000 only 5 months later? Homes are still down >10% yearly, REAL inflation is over 6%, we still continue to have negative savings, rates too low like we have are causing the Credit Card Bubble, foreclosures continue to climb (weren't they just up 60% since last year or something), etc. The market does not realize how BAD this is. It is truly delusional. I can't wait till these bulls get screwed when we see a 500+ point DOWN day soon.
If the market were to move up higher from here, take a guess what catalyst it would be based on: MORE BUYERS THAN SELLERS. That's the only catalyst you need. All your BS "credit crisis of epic proportions", "oil at $120", "consumer is spent up" all means nothing when there are more buyers than sellers. This is how eventually bear markets have bottomed out and rallied back up in the light of the worst news. Bottoms are made before the good news hits and they feel irrational to retail amateurs like yourself. Just like markets tend to top out way before the worst news hits.
I trade technicals. And from what I gather, such trading must be VERY foreign to you. Given your constant yammering about what you believe the "fundamentals" to be, I cannot even begin to offer you any kind of understanding of how I TRADE the markets . . . You keep looking for a FUNDAMENTAL "catalyst" to provide the basis for "this and that" . . . Yet, the market spends much of its time trading off of technicals. Unfortunately, you fail to understand this. The chart that is posted above by Mr. Steenbarger regarding the lack of new lows at the March lows as opposed to the January lows speaks volumes to a technical trader. So does the recent number of new lows earlier this week ( only 279 ). I'm not saying that we have already seen THE bottom. But, the technicals do tell me that this market is a lot stronger than it was back in December, January, and February. I respect that. Thus, I do not spend my time "rationalizing" what the market is doing at this point and time, like you seem to constantly do.