We need something else to bs about here. Anybody position themselves ahead of tomorrow's number? Any guesses as to impact?
I say 1.7, not like it matters, it will be spun bullishly. Wtf is gonna derail this. I have a theory that the Chinese are diversifying their bond holding into US equities b/c they're "relatively" cheap. That is not going to end overnight. We go up until something breaks. The fact that assclown Cramer is begging the public to get on board may really be the last leg. When Jimmysixpack decides to try and get even from his housing losses by dumping cash into the market it will be the beginning of the end. Man this country is gonna be REAL fucked up in a coupla of years.
pay attention to the deflator, very important, anything above 3.5% could be pretty bad for the market. As for the GDP, they are expecting 1.8%. Like I said a few days ago, it doesn't matter what the GDP is, the markets will take it as a positive. If the GDP comes in below 1%, we have a different story to worry about. My prediction is everything will come in within consensus and the market wont have to worry about a thing.
I think in a few more weeks will be able to tell if its 1999 all over again. 18 out of 20 days have been up. People who haven't been in the market since 1999 will be coming back in soon and once this happens I feel it could give the market another run, bigger than the one we have now. I do think risk is building though, there seems to be 0 risk at the moment but we all know risk can come at anytime and take out months of gains in only a few short hours.
What makes this so difficult to trade is the dearth of volatility. Every trade is one way. Also, all the interelations in the market have been tossed out. Not even a year ago every time gas approached $4 a gallon the retailers would get smoked and it would be endless speculation about the death of the consumer. Now $4 gas is great for the consumer because everyone is long TSO and VLO. In 6 weeks hurricane seasons will start yet every insurer is gapping up like crazy on earnings. Don't get me started about AMZN either. I've been doing this for 12 years and it aint normal mkt action, people don't seem to realize that during the doubling of the Naz in '99-00 vols were in the mid 20's and low 30's and retracements were common. There will be a breaking point and I have no idea what it is but the short base is being seriously eroded and that will not be good for the most recent buyers.
Anybody shorting any common or God forbid index futures must have felt incredible pain. There is no retracement. There is no relief. If you sell your ES long and hope to buy it back 5 points lower you're out of the game for weeks (exaggerating, but you get the picture). That's it, it won't come back in a while so either buy back at higher prices or there goes your long index exposure. For many trading styles unless its buy&hold this steady grind upwards is a sub-optimal environment. Sooner or later it will change and intra-day ranges will be back.
I agree with you and your outlook and prior post above. On US GDP - I accept the 1.8 consensus. My trade on this is short or puts in IYR, IWM, EEM and SPY. Instinct is to be long TLT or ZN but I have done nothing yet. Started this 2 days ago in the rally and made up my loss with several scalps long index futures. Outlook is bearish US economy and generally bullish on markets, mostly due to this month's dollar and yen devaluations, but looking for the break from overbought conditions and the stunning number of up days so far this month. As I write, I see MSFT well up in Europe and Wall St urging GE to get rid of NBC unit to raise share price. These 2 are 7% or so of the SP so it's another morning that I have little enthusiasm for my trade. Watching the dollar is truly depressing for a strong money guy.