would tend to agree, end of the month, rebalancing of portfolio's and remember the US has never let the country turn into a recession ? the year of an election. We have had so much intervention in every department of government if it were us we would be charged with manipulation. only in the usa w
Here's a thought: Maybe the billions upon billions of $'s that the fed is forcefeeding to banks is getting stuffed haphazardly back into the market. You know this is what's going on. The fed is giving handouts left and right with the implied notion that the banks need to buoy themselves and this market or they could be the next victim of a BSC-type event. Where else are you gonna put your billions....in an Orange MM account with ING????
Me too, I think today was a key in showing that the market does have the potential to continue on its follow through day. This rally was ignited by the SEC's new short sale rules on key financial stocks and on oil prices coming down. Having oil up over 4% today and equities showing strong buying into the close is certainly not bearish. I'm still mostly on the sidelines, but I've been mostly out of shorts for a week and totally out after yesterday. I started to test out the long side a few weeks ago when we started to see the medical stocks lead up (AFAM, MMSI, AMED, DNA etc) and some transports. So, for right now my limited long exposure is there (about 25%). If the next pullback occurs on light volume and does not break support I will be eager to put the majority of my money back to work on the long side. If it fails I'll be shorting laggards such as GOOG, LVS etc until I'm blue in the face. Either way there will be plenty of action here coming up soon.
Confirmed late last year by Sheila Baird herself, talking about the dangers of the (current) US bank carry trade that involved excessive equity speculation by bailed-out institutions. After the crash, and once the bailout was implemented...banks tried to get out from under the compensation-restricting bailout money in the fastest way possible. Equities offered the quickest route to payback. With net mutual fund outflows, the 2009 bank-holding-company-induced rally was just a dream that we have yet to wake up from. 2010 will be an interesting year.