We Endure Another Top Call

Equities start the day slightly higher as we endure another top call. So the market Gods, in their infinite wisdom, decided to dump Ali Baba and the 40 syndicate runners in our laps last Friday and now the entire world thinks the top is in. Again. The past two sessions have seen a subtle change in sentiment that appears to be reverberating thru the investing world. Case in point:  I was speaking with a good client of mine the other day and he described himself as a “fully invested bear”. I pondered that last night while consuming my store bought frozen pizza and came to the conclusion that his descriptor was probably accurate for a majority of the professional investing world. I really haven’t run across a pure 100% “the world is awesome” bullish money manager in months.   Most of the people out there are worried about how far we’ve come so when they see a huge IPO like $BABA they get worried about exuberance. Then they put their hands in their pockets and the market leaks lower for a few days. But you know what?  You know what’s worked this year? Patience. You know what hasn’t? Chasing. So I don’t blame them or anyone for watching the market come off its highs. Anyway, that’s how I see it right now, we are enduring another bout of “the top is in” fever and it won’t subside until we get one of those massive snapback days. Did it happen today? Let’s find out.

After the open it sure didn’t look like we would. The first hour was a nonstop sell-a-thon down to 1,978 and it looked like we’d have our 4th down day in a row. Would you believe me if I told you the S&P hasn’t had 4 consecutive down days in 2014? It’s true. Which is odd because 4 down days doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. The market managed to reverse itself after New Home sales printed the highest # since 2008 and as the morning ended we were back in the green (Head over to this link if you care about New Home sales or just wanna see some fancy charts). BBRY ended flat today after announcing a phone that looks like big Triscuit. Wow. I didn’t realize the “I love looking at spreadsheets on my phone” crowd was so profitable. Wait….maybe it’s a junior banker phone! Hey junior bankers, ready to work on spreadsheets in the bathroom?  Of course you are!! What did well today? BBBY / VRTX / ALXN / HAS / GPRO / and AGN. Losers were mainly energy names like DO / NRG / RRC / and SWN. By lunch we sat on 1,991, a measly 1% from the closing all-time highs (man these corrections are so steep).

The afternoon was rudely interrupted by an AAPL iOS update that seemed to render everyone’s phones useless so that was pretty much all people talked about. So lemme get this straight, Apple’s new invention bends and doesn’t make phone calls? Sounds like my daughters Gumby doll and that only cost me $1.99. Oh AAPL, say it ain’t so. We closed at 1,998 managing to avoid that dreaded 4th down day. So yea, our 3 day pullback evaporated before I had a chance to get all worried and tell you why every stock is a sell. Actually there is something that makes me want to short every name in the US.  It’s the fact that Mike “the situation” made $8.9mm and didn’t pay taxes on it. $8.9mm for that Jersey Shore drivel? What is wrong with this country?  

Final Score:  Dow +91bps, S&P500 +79bps, Nasdaq +105bps, Rus2k +86bps. 

News Highlights:

Tonight we’re gonna end with a look at triple backflips on a Motorcycle.  Stuff of legends here.

http://youtu.be/0e31bJDspEc?t=3m52s

Have a good night