Lady MacBeth Pushes For Independence
Equities start the day higher as Lady Macbeth pushes for independence. See what I did there? Avoided the dramatically overused William Wallace reference and went right for the hipster Shakespeare one. Man, those high school lit classes are really paying off. Want to see 23 of the Most Wonderfully Scottish things ever? Click right here. So yea, Scots are voting for independence as we speak and hopefully they vote “no”. Why? Because markets hate uncertainty, and “yes” would be a heaping pile of haggis laden uncertainty. To be honest I really don’t know enough about why Scots want / don’t want independence so let’s move on because I’ve run out of horribly unfunny analogies. The Fed gave us more of the same yesterday and when the next meeting ends they will officially be done with QE. Think about that for a second…years and years of buying financial assets will finally end in October. History will ultimately judge Bernanke’s actions but I for one think he did the best he could in a unwinnable situation. The true test of QE / Extraordinary monetary policy will be how they exit, and that situation is staring us right in the face. I wish Janet Yellen would show up to one of those press conference things and say “But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail” (paying off again).
After the open, stocks rose faster than Braveheart freedom speech views on Youtube. Straight rockin to fresh highs as Financials and Transports reminded us that we are, indeed, still in a bull market. Seriously, what’s not to like about these charts? They are slow, steady reminders that the economy is actually doing ok. Are we growing at a post WW2 pace? Of course not, but we probably never will again. Just because GDP isn’t clipping 8% a year doesn’t mean our economy stinks and that you should bury your head in the sand. We are doing ok here, be optimistic! No goofy stock moves today worth talking about, at least none that qualify for my ire. Winners were CAG, WYNN, CME, AKAM, and SNDK. Losers BTU, QEP, CNX, CHK, and MRO. Most of today’s session was dominated by talk about Scotland, the upcoming BABA IPO, iPhone 6’s being delivered tomorrow, and Tom Brady’s resume in case he didn’t get drafted. My favorite entry is exposed to upper level management and company strategy. “Yea, so I was in the bathroom this one time and the CEO was in there. He asked me whether the firm should switch from black pens to blue pens so you could say I’m pretty involved in high level decision making”. TB12…cracks me up.
The final hour saw us push up to the highs where we closed, 2,011, up 50bps. Remember when the Nasdaq sold off on Monday because people were “making room for AliBABA”? I swear the stuff people make up to describe price action cracks me up. Want me to let you in on one of Wall St’s biggest secrets? Most of the time stocks move on nothing but the whims and vagaries of a giant set of participants. That’s it. Subtle sentiment shifts, ridiculous reactions to headlines, thin markets moved by big orders. Things happen, there usually isn’t a “reason”. Anyway, another day another new all time high. I’m sure the top callers will call this a bubble, and maybe it is, but now isn’t the time to move to the sidelines. Stick with it and ignore random headlines that seem to affect everyone on Twitter.
Final Score: Dow +64bps, S&P500 +49bps, Nasdaq +72bps, Rus2k +47bps.
News Highlights:
- Succinct Summation of the Day’s Events: Fresh highs led by banks and transports. The place that makes delicious peat tasting alcohol is trying to decide whether it wants FREEEEDOOOOMMM.
- Guess what economic data point is back near the lows of the last decade? Weekly Jobless Claims.
- You know what I think looking at this map? My GOD the British Empire was enormous.
- This is, without a DOUBT, the best food link I’ve ever posted in a recap.
- Man the state of WA is gorgeous.
- Do you think they really needed to do the currency conversion here?
- How to get rid of those pesky iOS8 annoyances.
- This must be the worst thief on the planet. Yep, let me put this piece of art right here in my jacket.
We’ll end tonight with another one of those videos that make me say “nope nope nope nope nope”
Have a good night