Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Zero Hedge

To anyone still believing that capital markets around the world express something other than government policy, the latest news out of China may come as a surprise: “Beijing will buy more shares in China’s biggest banks, in an expression of support for the beleaguered stock market and most concrete state action to date to shore up confidence in the slowing economy.”

Hayden’s Note:

Those of you who despise capitalism or say that the free market doesn’t work need to step back and realize that this is not free market capitalism in action.  This is croni-capitalism, or a corporatocracy.  This is flat-out market manipulation in its most blatant form.  Those corporations and stocks that fail should be left to fail, not propped up by governments.  By bailing them out, they are conveying to the public, “Have faith! Continue to buy and invest!…don’t worry that this stock should have gone under.  Put more money into it.  Their failed policies and ideas will suddenly become great!”

Some mornings I wake up and wish the collapse would hurry up and happen so that we can have a chance at a real free market....

Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Zero Hedge

Either the YesMen have infiltrated Italy’s biggest, and most undercapitalied, bank, or the stress of constant, repeated lying and prevarication has finally gotten to the very people who know their livelihoods hang by a thread, and the second the great ponzi is unwound their jobs, careers, and entire way of life will be gone. Such as the head of UniCredit global securities Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, and former Chairman of the Hungarian stock exchange, who has written an unbelievable op-ed in the Hungarian portal Index.hu which, frankly, make Alessio “BBC Trader” Rastani’s provocative speech seem like a bedtime story.

Only this time one can’t scapegoat Szalay-Berzeviczy “naivete” on inexperience or the desire to gain public prominence. If someone knows the truth, it is the guy at the top of UniCredit, which we expect to promptly trade limit down once we hit print.

Among the stunning allegations (stunning in that an actual banker dares to tell the truth) are the following: “the euro is “practically dead” and Europe faces a financial earthquake from a Greek default“… “The euro is beyond rescue”… “The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits.”….”A Greek default will trigger an immediate “magnitude 10” earthquake across Europe....

Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Michael Snyder - Truth Contributor

Will global financial markets reach a breaking point during the month of October?  Right now there are all kinds of signs that the financial world is about to experience a nervous breakdown.  Massive amounts of investor money is being pulled out of the stock market and mammoth bets are being made against the S&P 500 in October.  The European debt crisis continues to grow even worse and weird financial moves are being made all over the globe.  Does all of this unusual activity indicate that something big is about to happen?  Let’s hope not.  But historically, the biggest stock market crashes have tended to happen in the fall.  So are we on the verge of a “Black October”?

The following are 21 signs that something big is about to happen in the financial world and that global financial markets are on the verge of a nervous breakdown….

#1 We are seeing an amazing number of bets against the S&P 500 right now.  According to CNN, the number of bets against the S&P 500 rose to the highest level in a year last month.  But that was nothing compared to what we are seeing for October.  The number of bets against the S&P 500 for the month of October is absolutely astounding.  Somebody is going to make a monstrous amount of money if there is a stock market crash next month....

Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Economic Prism - M.N. Gordon, Truth Contributor

Falling Flat on its Face

Like the U.S. Treasury, President Obama’s recent jobs proposal is bankrupt.  Quite frankly, we weren’t counting on much.  But that doesn’t mean we still weren’t disappointed by its burdensome emptiness.

The most remarkable thing about the President’s latest jobs creation plan has nothing to do with the actual substance – or lack thereof – included in the initiative.  To the contrary, it’s the idea behind it that’s most noteworthy.  In short, the President actually believes the government can use borrowed money to stimulate the economy. 
If this were true, the trillions of dollars already spent would have produced an epic boom and job creation renaissance.  By this point in the recovery, unemployment would be down and opportunities would be abundant.  Obviously, none of these things have taken place.  Instead, according to a recent Bloomberg National Poll, only 9 percent of the population is confident the economy won’t slide back into recession.

The government, as we’ve seen, is extraordinarily capable of spending boat loads of borrowed money.  Yet there’s no documented proof or empirical evidence that supports the notion that this can grow the economy.  Moreover, simple logic shows it actually shrinks the economy. 

When the heavy hand of government directs borrowed money into activities it favors, it diverts money from the private sector and starves the economy of capital.  What’s more, the activities the government favors, like bridge building and school construction, don’t add productive self-supporting jobs to the economy.  So when the money runs out the economy falls flat on its face....

Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Zero Hedge

While Buffett is forced to bailout America’s most insolvent bank, which just confirmed our prediction that it will need to raise capital (although this capital raise was far lass than what will be finally needed), Europe has realized that it has no kindly-looking, ukulele-playing, no-income-tax-paying billionaire equivalent to bailout Intesa, SocGen, UniCredit, etc, etc, oh, and tomorrow, the short-selling bank is supposed to expire. End result: DAX flash crashes, and no rebound yet.

...

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Bloomberg

Google Inc., maker of the Android mobile-phone software, agreed to buy smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in its biggest deal, gaining mobile patents and expanding in the hardware business.

Motorola shareholders will get $40 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement today. That’s 63 percent more than Motorola Mobility’s closing price on the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 12. Both boards have approved the takeover.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder who took over as chief executive officer in April, is transforming Google into a smartphone maker to take on Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and gain more clout in the wireless business. Motorola Mobility, under pressure to seek strategic changes by activist investor Carl Icahn, gives Google more than 17,000 patents the company can leverage in negotiations with competitors such as Apple.

Continue reading – Bloomberg

Hayden’s Disclosure:

It’s a minor point, but I DO use an HTC Android-powered phone.  I’ve also been a user of Google services since its inception.  Furthermore, I hate the fact that I use anything Google related but am in awe of their dominance in various markets.  They are creepy, they work hand in hand with the Federal Government for domestic wiretapping/surveillance, and are mostly evil on general principle.  I’m on the fence.  It’s like staring at a car wreck happening.  I don’t want to, but I do....

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Zero Hedge

The guys (and chick!) over at Zero Hedge summed up the business day in a short, sweet fashion -

The Dow is down more than 500. The S&P is down 60. The VIX surges 35% to 32 the highest since June 2010. Implied correlation surges to the highest since last summer. ES volume surges to the highest since the flash crash. Europe is opening in 12 hours. Margin debt is near record high levels, and mutual funds have record low cash. Liquidations galore. Did we miss anything?

Here are a few other links from the Drudge Report if you’re bored…

DOW PLUMMETS 512…
OBAMA HAS BBQ COOKOUT…
GAINS FOR YEAR GONE…
‘CORRECTION’…
PANIC RIPS THROUGH GLOBAL MARKETS…
Intervention fails to quell nerves…
‘NOT SINCE JIMMY CARTER’…
Military money on chopping block…...

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Oil Price by John Daly – Truth Contributor

The last three years of global recession have dealt a major blow to American capitalist ideas trumpeted throughout the world on the value of “free markets.” Wall St has been revealed as a form of casino economy, with the bankster insiders gambling with other people’s, and eventually, the government’s money in the form of bailouts. As the Republicans in Congress, scenting victory in the 2012 presidential elections, hold a gun to the Obama administration’s head and rating agencies consider downgrading U.S. government bonds in light of Washington’s possible defaulting, many ideas around the world that previously seemed implausible because of the dominance of the U.S. economy are garnering renewed interest.
 
Not surprisingly, many of these concepts originate in countries not enamored with Washington’s influence, perhaps none so more than “Axis of Evil” charter member Iran, which has seen its economy hammered by more than three decades of U.S.-led sanctions. Now Iran is working a program, that, if it succeeds, could help undermine the dollar’s preeminence as the world’s reserve currency more effectively than a Republican filibuster....

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Zero Hedge

David Rosenberg provides the key bulleted market observations that have marked the broad capital markets over the past few months.

• $950 billion of paper equity wealth has been wiped off the map in the past six weeks.
• The Dow is below 12,000 for the first time since March 18th.
• The Transports are down more than 8% from the nearby highs and are down for the year as well
• The Transports/Utilities ratio has broken down to its lowest level since November 9th of last year.
• The Nasdaq is now down for the year (-0.3%)
• The Russell 2000 index is also down for the year (-0.5%).
• The S&P 500 is just 1.1% away from seeing the same fate.
• The S&P 500 has declined in each of the past six weeks, the longest losing streak since June-July 2008.
• The S&P 500 has fallen below its 150-day moving average after breaking below the 50-day and 100-day trendlines earlier in this corrective phase; the 200-day is the next level of support.
• For the Dow, this is the longest string of weekly declines since the Fall of 2002.
...

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Zero Hedge

It may be time for the CME to hike some coffee margins as prices for the legal drug are starting to get out of control. According to Dow Jones, Smucker has just increased its average coffee product price by 11% in its 4th price hike in just the past year. This, along with all other comparable deflationary developments (according to some) could not have been foreseen by anyone, and will lead to the Fed’s Elizabeth Duke discussing next year how, very inexplicably, America’s low and middle classes are forced to choose between espresso shots and toilet paper.

From Dow Jones:

The food company, which also makes jams, jellies and Jif brand peanut butter, said the move is driven by sustained increases in green coffee costs. It disclosed similar price increases in February, August and last May.

The increase applies to such brands as Folgers, Dunkin’ Donuts and Millstone.

Smucker reported an 11% increase in U.S. retail coffee sales for the nine months ended Jan. 31, while profit during that period grew 12%.

...

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Zero Hedge

Zero Sum trading (in which the banks make money and taxpayers lose it) continues: following previous reports of trading perfection at both D-grade trading “powerhouse” Bank of Countrywide Lynch, and FRBNY-lite JP Morgan, Goldman craps the bad by being the only big bank so far to post a trading loss day in Q1 (even if it was for $0-25 million). This is unacceptable. As a result SLP latencies will be cut from 0 nanoseconds to -10, as Goldman will proceed to a Tachyon based trading infrastructure. In beta tests, such “frontrunning to the future” trading has already posted solid results: in addition to the humiliating trading day loss, GS had 32 days with profits of “>$100 million.” And it still failed to impress… Now that HFT “girl around the block” Citi is no longer there for the taking by anyone with a growing liquidity rebate itch, this number will plunge.

Elsewhere, one wonders what caused the surge in daily trading VaR in the last days of March. Or perhaps at least someone appears to have made money on the Japan catastrophe....

TruthisTreason.net – Kevin Hayden

Source: Zero Hedge

The US Federal Reserve has bet the farm… and the Republic on the idea that they can inflate us back to a recovery.

In plain terms, Bernanke and pals believe that if they can make the stock market rise, people will feel richer and will start spending money again, insuring that the US economy (which is 70% based on the consumer) will come roaring back to life.

The problem with this sort of thinking is that it’s so superficial as to be laughable, especially for those claiming to have an advanced education from a top university.

Hayden’s Note:

The only alternative to this train of thought is that it is an intentional slide into economic chaos.  Those are essentially the two options at this juncture.  Is Ben Bernanke, who was considered a child prodigy, truly not understanding what he’s doing?  Does the genius behind the mask really think such a flawed plan would work?  I tend to think not.  I’m no fan of the guy, but I give him credit.  He’s incredibly smart.  So that leaves us with the only other conclusion: This is a guided, deliberate decline into economic collapse....

Source: Casey Research

via Zero Hedge

What will happen to the U.S. economy and the dollar in the near term? Will inflation increase dramatically? What is the outlook for gold, and where should you put your money? BIG GOLD asked a world-class panel of economists, authors, and investment advisors what they expect for the future. Caution: strong opinions ahead…

Jim Rogers is a self-made billionaire, author of the best-sellers Adventure Capitalist and  Investment Biker, and a sought-after financial commentator. He was a co-founder of the Quantum Fund, a successful hedge fund, and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI).

Bill Bonner is the president and founder of Agora, Inc., a worldwide publisher of financial advice and opinions. He is also the author of the Internet-based Daily Reckoning and a regular columnist in MoneyWeek magazine.

Peter Schiff is CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals (www.europacmetals.com) and host of the daily radio show The Peter Schiff Show (www.schiffradio.com). He is the author of the economic parable How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes and the recent financial bestseller The Little Book of Bull Moves: Updated and Expanded....

Source: Zero Hedge

For those wondering why nobody wants to trade ever again on what are now purely legalized fraud markets (and thank god Ze Germans are dumb enough to buy them at any price), here is the reason:

• JPMORGAN RACKS UP THREE PERFECT TRADING QUARTERS IN 2010
• JPMORGAN TRADERS HAD PERFECT SECOND HALF, BANK SAYS
• JPMORGAN TRADERS LOST MONEY 8 DAYS IN 2010, DOWN FROM 42 IN ’09

In other words, of 260 trading days in 2010, the firm lost money on 8, or 3.1%. In yet other words, the firm made money 96.9% of the time. We’ll repeat that: JPM made money 96.9% of the time.

Hayden’s Note:

Add in their well-documented silver price manipulation and you can start seeing JP Morgan for what they truly are: market manipulating fraudsters of the highest order.  They are also one of the largest shareholders of the Federal Reserve.

See some of the related articles below for more on JP Morgan’s silver price scheme....

Source: Zero Hedge

There was a time when news, especially very bad news, moved stocks. The last time that occurred was in the middle of 2009, before most robots had any idea just how massive Bernanke’s schizoid break with reality was. Now, that the appropriate sociopathology is fully priced in, bad news tends to have an even more profound upside impact on stocks than good news, as it guarantees that the Zimbabwe stock market will be upon us far sooner than if the economy were to have to go through another inter-QE episode. Which is why the just released news out of US Bankruptcy Judge Robert Grossman of Central Islip, New York, that MERS lacks rights to transfer mortgages will likely send the entire S&P circuit breaker up.

From Bloomberg:

“Merscorp Inc., operator of the electronic-registration system that contains about half of all U.S. home mortgages, has no right to transfer the mortgages under its membership rules, a judge said…U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Grossman in Central Islip, New York, in a decision he said he knew would have a “significant impact,” wrote that the membership rules of the company’s Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, don’t make it an agent of the banks that own the mortgages…”

“MERS’s theory that it can act as a ‘common agent’ for undisclosed principals is not supported by the law,” Grossman wrote in a Feb.

...

Source: Zero Hedge

TruthisTreason.net

Managing perception is the game plan, not fixing what ails the real economy. Why? Cui bono: it’s all about rescuing a politically sacrosanct and highly insolvent financial sector.

According to some analysts, the “recovering” U.S. economy is poised to enter a phase of explosive growth. Other analysts see evidence that the bogus “recovery” (all Fed stimulus “hat” and no organic growth “cattle”) is teetering on the edge of implosion from any number of causes: high inflation, declining home values, high oil prices, etc.

My view? Whatever. The real economy is so detached from the one presented by official data and the stock market that “growth”, explosive or modest, is a matter of managed perception, not reality.

As for the implosion, Central State intervention and massive spending/credit creation has already limited it to a decline heavily smoothed by extended unemployment, food stamps, zero interest rates, Federal Reserve purchases of Treasuries and mortgage instruments, and massive Federal spending on everything from fighter jets to Medicare.

The relentlessly managed perception is that the “spot of bother” circa 2008-09 is history, and the situation has been restored to normalcy, i.e....

Source: Zero Hedge

It was the night before Christmas Eve, and CNBC trucked out TrimTabs’ Charles Biderman to a de minimis audience, knowing full well that a man with his understanding of money flows would very likely repeat his statement from last year, that there is no real, valid explanation for the inexorable move in stocks higher, as equity money flows in 2010 were decidedly negative, and any explanation of the upward melt up would need to account for Fed intervention (and no-volume HFT offer-lifting feedback loops but that is a story for another day).

A year after the first scandalous report was published, TrimTabs is sticking with its story: “If the money to boost stock prices by almost $9 trillion from the March 2009 lows did not come from the traditional players, it had to have come from somewhere else.  We believe that place is the Fed. By funneling trillions of dollars in cash to the primary dealers in exchange for debt, the Fed has given Wall Street lots of firepower to ramp up the prices of risk assets, including equities.”

And, wisely, Biderman, just like Zero Hedge, asks what happens when the buying one day, some day, ends: “…stock prices will be higher by the time QE2 ends, but economic growth will not be sustainable without massive government support.  Then even more QE will be needed, and stock prices could keep rising for a while.  In our opinion, however, no amount of QE will be able to keep the current stock market bubble from bursting eventually....

Source: Money and Markets

Whenever folks from Washington or Wall Street try to persuade you that the Great Debt Crisis is now “over,” I suggest you shake their hands politely, usher them to the door, and tell them to never come back.

They didn’t see the crisis coming. And they have no idea when or how it might end.

The reality: We now have not one — but FOUR — sweeping debt crises striking at the same time …

1. The mortgage debt crisis, said to be “mostly behind us,” has continued to deepen, fester, and spread — a shocking 13.78 percent of U.S. mortgage loans now delinquent or in foreclosure, despite trillions spent or lent by Washington on housing market bailouts. (For our early warnings, see Housing Bust Spreading published here in 2005 and for our latest commentary, see Mortgage Mayhem Spreading.)

2. The sovereign debt crisis, thought to be “history” after Europe bailed out Greece earlier this year, is now back with a vengeance, smashing the economies of Greece and Ireland … hammering the euro … spreading to Portugal and Spain … engulfing Belgium … and even threatening to bust apart the entire European Union, the world’s LARGEST economy....

Source: US News

Failure by Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts, especially locking in the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, will spark a stock market sell off starting December 15 as investors move to lock in gains at a lower rate than the 20 percent it would jump to next year, warn analysts.

While it is unclear how bad the sell off could be, it could wipe out the year’s gains, they warn.

“Capital gains tax rate will increase from 15 to 20 percent if the tax cuts are not extended. The last time the capital gains tax rate increased–on Jan. 1, 1987 from 20 to 28 percent–investors realized their gains at the lower tax rate,” said Daniel Clifton at a Washington partner at Strategas Research Partners. “We would expect a similar effect this time around as investors see the tax rate going up and choose to realize their gains and incur the 15 percent tax.”

In a memo to clients, Clifton says that the date most clients are focused on is December 15th for a deal in Congress before beginning to sell....

Kevin Hayden

TruthisTreason.net

China says G20 should monitor US Fed

China’s state media has issued a new broadside at the US Federal Reserve’s move to prime the US economy, suggesting the Group of 20 should monitor policy shifts by the US central bank.

The Xinhua news agency said in a commentary the Fed was “risking the global recovery by following its own track for economic revival” by spending an extra $US600 billion ($A593.65 billion) buying Treasury bonds to stimulate the US economy.

“There is an urgent need for the G20 … to set up a new mechanism that effectively monitors the issuer of the international reserve currency, especially when it is not able to carry out responsible currency policies,” Xinhua said.

“It is necessary for the issuer of the international reserve currency to report to and communicate with the G20 group before it makes major policy shifts.”

Hayden’s Note:

So now China is demanding the Federal Reserve confer and seek approval with the G20 – a global governing body – before making financial decisions, good or bad.  Hmmm, maybe this is what was planned all along.  As conspiratorial as that sounds, I can find no other earthly reason that Ben Bernanke, a man of such genius (although I despise him, credit is given where it’s due), could possibly think quantitative easing is good for the economy in our present situation....

Kevin Hayden

TruthisTreason.net

Insider Selling Surges To Multi-Month High, Hits $662 Million, Ratio Of Selling To Buying Doubles To 423x From Week Earlier

Bloomberg reports that the week ending October 29 saw the largest amount of insider selling (by notional) in S&P500 stocks in months, possibly in all of 2010 (unfortunately our records don’t go back all the way to the beginning of the year). Altogether, $662 million in stock was sold in the past week, compared to purchases of just $1.6 million. The result: an insider selling to buying ratio of 423x. This is nearly double the prior week’s 229x. Yet the ratio was rescued by three brave buyers who bought up $787k and $407k worth of American Express and Procter and Gamble. Absent these two purchases the ratio would have been a disaster. What is more important is the denominator side of the fraction, as the total selling over the week hit what appears to have been a near-term record, at a total of $662 million. Biggest selling continues to take place at the (no surprise here) tech names which continue to be bid up by investors hoping a return of the dot com bubble....

Source: ALL Gov.

by Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

Kevin Hayden

TruthisTreason.net

Visualizing Currency Wars

Still confused by the whole concept of currency wars? Wondering why every day some new nation is said to have entered into the 21st century digital equivalent of good old fashioned dive bombing, when the only thing diving is the dollar? Then the following interactive infographic from the FT is for you. The data after the jump (free registration may be required) allows readers to explore the background and actions in the so-called currency wars, looking at the economic and political basis of the key countries’ actions.

Full interactive report after the jump.

And now that you know what it is, prepare to see it morph from merely the FX arena, to trade, and possibly elsewhere.

.

Insider Selling To Buying Update: 229 To 1

Some earth-shattering insider buying in the past week (a fact not seen in months), courtesy of a large block of stock purchased in Monstanto (for $1 MM), Intel ($384K), and GE ($334K), has done miracles to the general insider selling to buying ratio, and almost managed to offset the $114 million sold in Google, $100 million in Oracle, and $30 million or less sold in Safeway, Discovery Communications, Costco and a total of 61 other names....

Kevin Hayden

TruthisTreason.net

70% of All Stock Market Trades are held for an Average of 11 Seconds

Market analyst Peter Cohan writes at AOL’s Daily Finance:  

70% of trading volume on the major exchanges is conducted by high-frequency traders who hold a stock for an average of 11 seconds. 

Kevin Hayden

TruthisTreason.net

France to Run Out of Fuel in Days as Strikes Escalate

Petrol pumps could run dry in France by Wednesday, experts warned yesterday, as the stand-off over pension reforms reached crisis point.  Striking workers continued to block the Fos-Lavera fuel terminal near Marseille, where 61 ships and 47 petrol tankers are unable to offload.

Airlines advised pilots to refuel abroad and UFIP, the country’s oil industry association, said that if strikes continued at all 12 of France’s refineries, then national shortages would follow.

“We ran out of gas yesterday already. There’s nothing left,” said Alpha Sysavane, a worker at a BP station in Paris. “All we have left are a few litres of diesel fuel.”

One motorist from a village near Fontainbleau said she had driven 30 miles to Paris in order to buy fuel. “At home, the filling stations are closed,” said Emilia Scoubel (30), an office worker.

On Saturday, more than 825,000 protesters hit the streets in the fifth such demonstrations in a little over a month, though the government suggested that the movement was losing steam.  (Losing steam?  That’s the fifth occurance of almost 1 million protesters hitting the streets!  That’s pretty hardcore.  Here in the “Revolutionary” America, we typically have about 7 or 8 college kids protesting something....

Source: Zero Hedge

by Gonzalo Lira

I usually don’t do follow-up pieces to any of my posts. But my recent longish piece, describing how hyperinflation might happen in the United States, clearly struck a nerve.

It was a long, boring, snowy piece of macro-economic policy speculation, discussing Treasury yields, Federal Reserve Board monetary reaction, and the difference between inflation and hyperinflation—but considering the traffic it generated, I might as well been discussing relative breast size in the porn industry. With pictures.

Essentially, I argued that Treasury bonds are the New and Improved Toxic Assets. I argued that, if there was a run on Treasuries, the Federal Reserve—in its anti-deflationary zeal, and its efforts to prop up bond market prices—would over-react, and set off a run on commodities. This, I argued, would trigger hyperinflation.
 
The disproportionate attention my post garnered is indicative of people’s current fears. As I’ve said before, people aren’t blind or stupid, even if they often act that way. People are worried—they’re worried about the current state of affairs: Massive quantitative easing, toxic assets replaced by the full faith and credit of the U.S....

Source: Zero Hedge

Today we got our first Hindenburg Omen confirmation. The number of new highs was 136, and new lows was at 69 (per the traditional WSJ source). Granted this particular criteria set was a little weak as the 69 is precisely on the borderline for confirmation (the 2.2%), and the new highs number was not more than double the new lows (although it was close). Less gating were the McClellan oscillator which was negative at -83.6, and the 10 week MVA, which rose, which were the two remaining conditions. The first omen was spotted on August 12 – a week later the H.O has been confirmed. The more confirmations, the scarier it gets from a technical perspective, not to mention the conversion into a self-fulfilling prophecy (like every other technical indicator)....

Source: Safe Haven

Economy in for a Long Dark Period – Here’s How to Survive

The success of the multi-year machinations of the U.S. Government and the Federal Reserve’s attempts to manage the fiscal crisis can best be summarized in a single word – and that word is ephemeral – yes, ephemeral! This beautifully succinct word, ephemeral, is defined as “lasting for only a short period of time and leaving no permanent trace.” Yes, indeed, what better word is there to describe the Government’s so-called rescue plan than ephemeral – here today and gone tomorrow – and without a trace of lasting benefit!

While I tend to be short on words and to the point, as my previous articles* will attest, trying to achieve both accuracy and brevity on this subject was difficult to achieve but what follows should provide a reasonably fair and complete assessment.

Myriad of Statistical Measurements are Being Manipulated and Massaged

There have been a myriad of statistics presented by analysts attempting to quantify the short- and long-term impact of the economic and fiscal policies deployed over the last couple of years....

Source: CNBC

Stocks slipped Friday after the US government report showed more jobs were lost last month than expected. Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, and David Spika, vice president and investment strategist at WHG Funds, discussed their insights.

“The job report this morning is confirmation of why you want to invest in companies with exposure to faster-growing foreign markets,” Spika told CNBC.

Hayden’s Note:

Unless you are a full time trader, broker or investment guru, exposing your money to the international market while the dollar is so volatile is simply crazy. 

The employment and job numbers were so low because this is the first major report since they laid off all of the Census workers!  I said this back in January, March, April… they inflated the numbers to look good and buy themselves a few more months.  Now we are seeing that we actually have a net loss since the beginning of the year – unlike Obama’s claim that they created 130,000 jobs each month in the first and second quarter (or some other nonsensical number).  These were Census workers being hired one month, then 6 weeks later they were “re-hired” to be trained.  Then a few months later, they were re-re-hired in order to actually perform their role as Census workers.  It was a slick con, but anyone who watched the numbers closely could see the patterns....

Source: ZeroHedge

Hayden’s Note:

HFT stands for ‘High Frequency Trading’ where computers can send thousands of requests or data packets in split seconds to trade, buy and sell.  They can also, as this article points out very clearly, “check” to see what the market will do if they proceeded with a certain trade because we’re talking split seconds. It can then decide to go ahead with the sale/buy or pull out before actually committing to the deal.  This is manipulation of the market.  Hit the search bar or check the end of this article for related articles on HFT.

Recently we posted a required reading analysis by Nanex in which the market trading analytics firm presented irrefutable evidence of quote stuffing by HFT algorithms in tens of stocks, in which thousands of cancelled quotes would reappear each second with a definitive periodicity and regularity, around the time of the May 6 flash crash.

Aside from the fact that it is illegal to indicate a quote without a trade intent, this form of quote stuffing is in fact manipulative when conducted by HFT repeaters in specific “shapes” as it actually moves the NBBO actively higher or lower, in cases pushing the bid/offer range up to 10% higher without even one trade ever having occurred, simply by masking a big block order which other algos interpret as bid interest and pull all offers progressively or step function higher (or vice versa, although we have rarely if ever seen the walking down of a stock over the past 18 months)....