Stocks end best September in 71 years down

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: MSNBC

NEW YORK — Stocks ended a monthlong rally on a weak note, but still chalked up the best September in 71 years.

Indexes rose sharply at the open Thursday following some better news on the economy, but stumbled at midmorning and stayed lower the rest of the day as traders pulled out profits following a spectacular run for the market in September. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 47 points, having been up as many as 113 earlier in the day.

The Dow gained 7.7 percent in the month, making it the strongest September since 1939, at the dawn of World War II. However that runup followed a dismal August, and the Dow is still only up 3.5 percent for the year and is 3.7 percent below its closing high for 2010 reached on April 26.

Technology shares, which have been among the best performers this month, led Thursday's pullback. Major technology companies like Apple Inc., Dell Inc. and Google Inc. were all down about 1 percent.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39416231/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/

[Ozymanithrax]

1. This data is an illusion to make people think the economy is doing a little better.

when everyone knows we are deep in the throws of a double dip depression.

:sarcasm:

[Warren DeMontague]

2. WUR DOOOMED WUR DOOMED!!! WUR DOOOOOOOMED!!!

I'm telling you, we never should have bombed the moon.

[tomm2thumbs]

3. and AIG is paying back the govt? What dastardly plan is this?!!!

Who could have concocted such a bailout of the American taxpayer as this!!!??

[w4rma]

4. That money is being moved directly from the middle class to the billionaires. (nt)

[avaistheone1]

5. People who invest in stocks have no access to real consumer data.

Caveat: they would if they paid attention to the Consumer Metrics Institute numbers, which is precisely why I pay so much attention to them. But because nobody does this, the S&P 500 is not an indicator of now, but of quite a few yesterdays ago. The time lag it has allows for a rising stock market at the same time that unemployment rises (forget the equally lagging U3 9.6% unemployment), and foreclosures surge. It's all just a matter of time, or timing if you will.

If stocks keep on trading at the very low levels they have for months now, it's certainly possible for the Fed or the Treasury or the Plunge Protection Team, or anyone else (HFT?!), to manipulate the data upward. And from what we've seen lately, there's little doubt they'll try. Still, this doesn't really change anything solid, other than the time lags in the graphs we just looked at. The consumer part of the GDP, which is some 70% no matter what, has been showing negative growth for a long time according to the CMI data. And there doesn't seem to be any way, other than divine intervention, that this will not eventually reflect in the GDP and S&P 500 numbers. Again, it's all just a matter of time.





And then with GDP projections for Q3 and Q4:



Now where do you think, looking at the correlations between the various data, that the S&P is most likely to go in Q4 2010? How about Q1 2011? The Automatic Earth is not here to dole out investment advice, but all the same, does this look to you like a good time to buy stocks? Sure, there will always remain questions about the above until we see the actual numbers. But by the same token, we're way beyond crystal balls and tea leaves here; the Consumer Metrics Institute are not exactly a bunch of empty coneheads.

And besides, you won't know what really happened until 3-4 months after it did happen. And that, certainly in the case of such relatively powerful swings as we’ve been contemplating, will probably be too late for you to change course.

Simple as that, really. Feel lucky?


http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2010/09/september-28-2010-graphic-peek-into-our.html

[avaistheone1]

6. Stocks Blithely Ignore Traditional Warning Signs

The stock market is almost completely driven these days by algorithmic trading and prop-desk automotons who couldn’t care less about whether the ups and all-too-infrequent downs of the broad averages accurately reflect “reality.” Following is a post from the Rick’s Picks forum by “3 Lions” that nicely frames the insanity of it all. The theme is especially timely given the mini flash-crash perpetrated in bullion Monday night. This brazen, quasi-criminal shakedown not only allowed DaScumballs –aka the Night Shift – to steal gold and silver futures for far less than they were to fetch later that morning in more liquid markets, but to pick off widows and pensioners in some key stocks that trade round-the-clock, such as Apple, IBM and Google.)

Unequivocally, we have reached a watershed in the history of the U.S. stock market and therefore global stock markets. Never mind whether traders or investors are making money or not; the stock market has now become nothing more than a casino where the “table” almost always wins. Business-news channels in the USA are nothing more than offshoots of Hollywood sitcom studios which 20 years ago would have been rejected for children’s TV as being too dumbed down. The U.S. stock market has become so far detached from reality that justifiably it cannot be called a stock “market.”

Those of us who believe that one of the best ways to keep proper tabs on the financial charade is by perusing the consistently accurate touts in Rick’s Picks should spare a thought for those still bogged down in ancient trading methodology, such as Elliott Wave analysis, that began life when the stock market was indeed a “market.” A trading/investing friend of mine had 24 years in a row of profits until 2009/2010, when his proprietary trading method failed dismally. During the last 18 months, Bob Prechter has had more wrong calls than the Shanghai telephone exchange, and Dr. McHugh likewise. (I must point out that I have great respect for both of these men — they are still as clever as they always have been, it is just that the rules have changed).

It even looks like the otherwise invincible Charlie Nenner has got the top wrong (some say he is a secret agent of Goldman Sachs, but he does get it right 90% of the time). There are so many charting indicators (i.e., no fewer than six Hindenburg omens) that say this market should be collapsing – but it isn’t…so far. To cap it all, the infallible and rare VIX Bollinger signal almost two weeks ago signaled “down, down, down,” but in fact we have gone up, up, up! Meanwhile, the latest figures reveal that U.S. corporate insiders are selling 1411 shares (!) for every share they’re buying...


http://www.rickackerman.com/2010/09/stocks-blithely-ignore-traditional-warning-signs/


Sure! the market sounds really healthy. :sarcasm:

:sarcasm:

[TheWatcher]

7. Good Luck getting this message across anwhere outside the Economic Forum and SMW.

The Party Line around here is that The Stock Market IS the Economy, We ARE in a Recovery, and if you think otherwise, you are at best, a bad person with an agenda, or at worst, Financial Al Qaeda, and you hate America and are "rooting against the country.".


Good Posts by the way.

it's a shame they will mostly fall on deaf ears and be harpooned by the Recovery Police.

[HughMoran]

8. Good luck

I think you actually believe what you post.

[girl gone mad]

10. Why do you hate the President?

:sarcasm:

If equities traded on fundamentals anymore, this would be a good time to go short:

[arbusto_baboso]

9. Further bolstering my opinion that the market is insulated from anything resembling reality.

[zbdent]

11. really fucked up headline ...

if the media wanted it to look better, maybe they could have said "Stocks end down, but best September in 71 years"?

Of course, maybe the media will probably start spinning it that "the Republicans have the advantage going into November, so the stock market is reflecting a Repub win"?