Bring On The Mega Taper Ben

Equities start the day lower as Jobless claims plunge to the lowest level since 2006. 292k? Wow, bring on the mega taper Ben. Wait….what’s that? There was a computer glitch responsible for bad data? Come on man! If I can’t rely on 100% accuracy from the Federal Gov’t what can I rely on? @zerohedge is going to have a field day with this one right? Apparently the BLS is upgrading a few of their Commodore 64s so we’re not supposed to draw any conclusions from the data. Inquiry: If it had been 450k instead of 292k would they even have released it? The conspiracy theories are too innumerable to ponder, needless to say governmental data isn’t exactly infallible (I blew your mind there didn’t I?). Anyway, we start the day a whopping 1.2% off all time highs with no real change to the playing field. The taper is on for Sep 18, Syria is fading into the rear view mirror, and Putin thinks America is just average (I’m going to refrain from commenting on this one). Hey, since I have you here, how about a real data point you can wrap your arms around. Try this one on for size: Small Business Job creation plans are at their highest level in years. Whoa, man I gotta sell these stocks. I hate when small businesses create jobs.

After the open it felt like the day before thanksgiving mixed with the day after Christmas. Just a total lack of interest from anyone and everyone. Was there a holiday I missed? Actually wait, there wasn’t a lack of interest from everyone, let’s talk about retail shall we? What do Yoga Pants, Paisley handbags, and “you’re gonna like the way you look, I guarantee it” all have in common? If you answered “they gave mediocre guidance and got smacked” you win the prize! Tell ‘em what they’ve won Jonny! “Yes..you’ve won absolutely nothing, thanks for playing”. Well, unless you were short, then you won some positive PnL. Most of the other losers were materials related, stuff like CLF, VLO, NEM, TSO, and COG. Winners were WAG, KR, IRM, D, and YHOO. Hey, look at that YHOO, what a story. Hire a great CEO, pump out a new logo, get a few activist investors to sing your praises and all of a sudden you’re hotter than a guy in a TSLA using Z to find his new home in sunny Las Vegas. In which he’ll watch NFLX on the TV he just bought at BBY…yea I killed this joke, sorry. Slow day. By lunch we were aimlessly trading between 1,683 and 1,689 with no feel for where we should go.

 

The back half saw us test the lows, 1,682, down a whopping 34bps, and close right above there. Well there goes that 7 day winning streak we were on. Tragedy huh? This bear market just won’t let up, it’s ugly all over the place. Well, for a few weeks at a time at least, then everyone throws in the towel and calls it 2000 or 2007 or whatever other time we were in a massive bubble. Because anytime the market goes up its gotta be a bubble right? By the way, in case you didn’t notice, nothing really happened today. This is what you would call a “middle” day. 99% of the days don’t have any meaning at all they are just grinding around the “middle”. At least there’s a couple of decent economic data points on Friday, let’s see if those have any kick in them.

Final Score: Dow -17bps, S&P500 -34bps, Nasdaq -14bps, Rus2k -65bps.

 
News Highlights:

We’ll end tonight with a product banned in the USA. Apparently it’s not banned in Russia though because this guy is rocking it!

http://youtu.be/gCg7trECzpw?t=6s

Have a good night.