Wow, I'm getting dizzy.
I'd say the market is like a roller-coaster but there are no roller-coasters that make moves this crazy. Unfortunately, all this zig-zagging up and down is only serving to exhaust the erstwhile dip buyers, who haven't been getting quite the easy ride they've become used to over the past few years.
More importantly, we are NOT making our Strong Bounce Lines per our 5% Rule™, which has kept us from chasing these bounces as we just haven't quite gotten over the hump at:
- Dow 17,280 (weak) and 17,460 (strong)
- S&P 2,006 (weak) and 2,027 (strong)
- Nasdaq 4,608 (weak) and 4,656 (strong)
- NYSE 10,560 (weak) and 10,670 (strong)
- Russell 1,172.50 (weak) and 1,185 (strong)
As you can see, only the Dow has really cleared it's goal by any significant amount with the S&P right on the line and the NYSE and Russell pulling up the rear. All should be over at the open as we're getting a 1% pop in Europe, where inflation is so low that investors are CERTAIN that Draghi will come and save the day a week from Thursday (22nd) at the next scheduled meeting.
The Euro is below $1.18 this morning, so weak that even the Pound shot up to $1.515 rather than be seen in the same neighborhood as its poorer cousin. Nous sommes Charlie, indeed! The Euro is so weak even the Yen can't get over 120 to the Dollar (now 118.50) because traders would rather buy Yen than Euros – and Draghi hasn't actually done anything yet!
What's really sick about the game the ECB is playing is that they seem grimly determined to find places to throw $600Bn into some form of QE – AS LONG AS IT ISN'T FOR GREECE! Greece they are letting twist in the wind, rather than give them $75Bn to totally fix their economy. How F'd up is that? The ECB is litterally struggling to find ideas for where to jam the QE (as most places are already fully jammed) but they won't even let Greece skip an interest payment?
Well, Greece goes to the polls on Sunday, the 25th, just 3 days after the ECB decision and Greek voters will have a good opportunity to tell they EU where to shove their austerity program. Meanwhile, Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who, as a proponent of austerity, insists that "all previously agreed Greek debt must be paid in full regardless of the composition of the next Greek government." As summed up so well by Nicos Devletoglou at Athens University:
Such a proposition remains largely untenable, because first, as suggested, we would have to establish institutionally what the net remaining Greek debt is — after downward-adjusting it to compensate for, say, the shocking and still-rising rates of hunger and suicide and the lethal levels of unemployment that are already practically eviscerating the social and economic fabric of Greece, driven by the devastating momentum of continuing austerity, which is also responsible for the endemically collapsing aggregate demand in the eurozone's longest-suffering country, with steadily vanishing prospects of growth — generally prevalent elsewhere in Europe too — and nowadays threatening to bring Europe's Grande Démise yet closer as the euro continues depreciating and the eurozone slides deeper into deflation.
IN PROGRESS
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