Morning Charts 05/09/13 SPX /ES

I'm absolutely positive that every trader here at STB had equally as good trading quarters as JPM and BAC.  Wait, you didn't hit a perfect 100%, making a profit 60 out of 60 days last quarter? You are telling me that with this DOW action since November you have not at least batted 900?

What's your problem? I mean it's not like there is anything wrong with the economy. The global financial system is chocked full of liquidity. Heck our banks are so flush they can even pull loan loss reserves out to boost their earnings prospects. Add to that the Fed is pumping in $85 billion per month and Japan throwing in another $75B. How do you lose when there is no volume and a billion false bids lifting everything in sight? Heck, sleep in, have a huge lunch, take a nap, hit the buy button at 3:30, sell at 3:55 and go hit the links. It is not all that difficult folks.

Technicals schmechnicals. Tops? Ha! I see all those various historical measures reaching epic proportions. What do they matter now? This time is different, right? I mean the Fed and the government have our backs. They are not about to stop this gravy train no matter what sort of valuations or indications exist. This is the run for the ages. Come on in, the water is warm and all are welcome. The more the merrier. They won't be selling into your increase in equity allocation. That would never happen.

On to the markets -

Morning Charts 05/08/13 SPX /ES

I have a couple of meetings this morning that will keep me out till around noon.

We all know what it's all about, and they accomplished another mission yesterday with the DOW 15000 close. Top signs are everywhere. I've been reduced to the two P's - Patience and Prepare. It was follow the Fed for a couple of years and now all you can do is watch and wait.

Minis 4hr - Working from the travel/home set of ToS charts things may look a bit cleaner and slightly different. Note to those chartists out there - charting the same thing on two different computers can open new perspectives. Plain and clear the yellow channel up and price is back in the green older channel up. Support and resistance should be pretty clear.

SPX Daily - Looked at CPC, BP and VIX charts. Nasty conditions and the VIX is beginning to show signs that some sort of correction is coming sooner than later. Yes, I know the VIX is busted all to hell, but when it has moved in the same direction with SPX for longer periods of time it has been and unmistakeable trend change spotter.

And another interesting chart - 10m sma intervals -

Morning Charts 05/07/13 SPX /ES

When I read the below yesterday I could not believe what I was reading, then I stepped back, laughed and asked myself why am I surprised? After all we've been through, all the printing, TBTF, TBTJ, manipulation, corruption and having stated almost daily for the past couple of years, "they can't let the market fall" what's left that could Taze me now bro?

"Sadly, we are not making this up: as part of the BEA's latest revision to the way it calculates GDP, the government will no longer count the amount of pension funding that is actually allocated to retirement accounts (counted as wages in the GDP calculation): i.e., an actual cash outlay. Instead, what the Bureau of Economic Analysis will count are corporate promises of how much companies will (may? might?) pay... eventually. The bigger the lie and the promise, the higher the GDP. And presto."

That's from The Latest Contribution to US GDP: Promises ,,,No Really post on Zero Hedge. The post does not say much more, but why should it? How else do you describe yet another patently blatant manipulation scheme designed to fraudulently mislead everything that relies on US GDP data? What? Were the trillions wasted spent, the elimination of all regulation and gutting FASB standards not enough to boost the economy into a recovery? Are things so bad that .... never mind ... why go there? Was Dodd Frank so bad that ... oops ... won't go there either.

OK. so let's get this straight - the retirement/pension system that is woefully underfunded and can't support its promises is about to get buoyed by some bean counter flunkie at an S&P 500 firm all to make the economy look better so wall street can put this recession once and for all in the past?

Care to look at the market sans QE? Take a peek at the post The S&P With and Without QE. Let me sum it up for you, basically EVERY POINT (and then some by my calculations) off the 667 lows is QE driven. EVERY SINGLE POINT!

I have another question - how's this gonna work out for the CB's when they, as proxy to the government, take over said pension plans and make them GMS (Government Managed Accounts) to equalize distribution in the soon to be socialist state of America? Will they get fees for managing this "promised" money as well? I bet they will somehow.

Things are so fubared that all there is left to do is laugh (and stack physical as you leave every dollar denominated asset in your past).

On to the markets -

Morning Charts 05/06/13 SPX /ES

Since I have nothing new to say I thought I would do the post a bit differently this morning.The first several links are all from posts on ZH and you may have read them. I thought they read well put together as a post.

"the only option for the bulk of the periphery to regain competitiveness was through ongoing wage collapse and persistent localized depression. Five months later, just as predicted, Europe is in a worse shape than ever before, not only in those non-core countries where wage deflation is accelerating, but the weakness has fully spilled over to the core."

"The clear message from the doctors this week is that they plan to keep administering the pills, in larger quantities if necessary, until the donkey turns into a butterfly."

"Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012. With no recovery in sight, where’s all this money going? It is creating bubbles. Bubbles in the housing sector, the stock market, and government debt. In the meantime, real families are suffering. We are certainly not in a recovery."

"What is "obvious" to most participants is that the stock rally is fueled by central bank liquidity and quantitative easing, and since there is no limit in sight to these policies, there is also no limit to the stock market running higher." ..... "What is "obvious" to those embedded in the conventional, MSM/state-manufactured worldview is not the same as what is obvious to those outside the asylum."

"Swaps, as a tool, will no longer be able to face the upcoming challenges. When this fact finally sets in, governments will be forced to resort directly to basic asset confiscation."

"Financial markets operate on a number of implied assumptions about growth, policy direction and other factors. Experience tells us that these assumptions often turn out to be erroneous. A modern economy is an incredibly complex entity that involves millions of transactions every day. The notion that this vast and largely self-governing system can be controlled through tools such as government spending and/or an increase in the quantity of money is - to say the least - bizarre."

And that was just the financially related stuff. Syria, Israel (shields back up) and the rest of MENA are really starting to heat up. The Benghazi whistle blower issue should (should) send ripples thru DC and cause some heads to roll. O-care is crumbling. The DHS is on the hunt for even more ammo regardless of who's looking into what they are buying and why. Those and many. many more things are in the air right now. Things all round are not well at all. I assume it won't be long before the chainsaws they are juggling start to do some real damage. You have to see the desperation, the struggle, the chaos ruling things now and see the global dislocation occurring. It won't be long till someone blows up the wrong (or right) thing (if they have not already) that sets off the global powder keg.

On to the markets -

Open Weekend Post 05/04-05/13

You know the drill, share the love and the knowledge.

It is what it is till it isn't. There is only one thing we can do to stop it at this time, and that would be to go now and take all your money out of the banks and all other accounts. If they lost all the deposits, they would crumble. They are so desperate that at this time that may not even work. We've truly entered some sort of financial parallel universe, some sort of new dimension of reality that never existed before and we just don't get, something you would only see in a movie. It's Orwellian might be the best way to put it.

At least the STB readers all get it now. I think my rants and ramblings of the past four years have finally been proven positive. I'm not a kook, that's reassuring. What's not is reassuring is where we are headed and what the end result of all of this will be. Those looking to get short and make a fortune on the backside may be a bit misled. The last thing we want is whats coming. I'm not sure we'd much rather stay this course than have to deal with the net result of every financial market collapsing on the globe.

Daily SPX - Unfortunately Blogger does not let me upload Stockcharts anymore for some reason. So go to the link and see the Daily chart noting the 6 (six) consecutive negative divergences and 5 reversal candle formations this run thru 1600 has produced. If memory serves, seven neg divs are the record I have witnessed in the POMO era and after the seventh in that case we had a POMO end and close to a 10% correction. Of course, as it would be today, things are different living in an ease to infinity era which changes all the rules.

Enjoy the weekend.

GL and GB!

Morning Charts 05/03/13 SPX /ES

I was gonna do a big 'ol chartapalooza this morning then this happened.

So screw that. Why put in the work when none of it really matters?

OK , I can't quit there, but my post idea has definitely changed course.

Minis 60m - I use the terms overbought and overthrown quite often. When things get obliterated technically there is no other way to describe it. For weeks now we've had 1600 hanging over our heads, and since April 18th the minis were channeling up nicely (as the Fed like to do) until until the breakdown this past Wednesday. As discussed this week, yet another HnS RS proved to be a launching pad. They really need to change the definition of that formation from Bearish to bullish. Ah, the new normal, how nice. As I always warn on any breakdown the backtest is priority number one before you can really seriously start looking south. OK bears, blue channel backtest has happened in style. This should add a bit more fuel to your fire.

Morning Charts 05/02/13 SPX /ES

I love reading things that sound like a summary of my stuff from the experts.

"One possibility for the markets to reverse has always been some grand event but another is just the economic deterioration that wears away at the markets as current levels cannot be rationally supported. It is not just the Law of Diminishing Returns which is coming into play as the central banks create more money but the effects on the consumer of seriously declining available cash to be used to purchase goods and services."

Of course they are far more eloquent and polished, but then like I give a flip. It is the content that matters, and I believe my readers appreciate the relaxed, informal and truthful nature of my posts (feel free to insert your description below - we could have a good time with this).

That was from First Euphoria, Then Reality on Zero Hedge. STB has been discussing the mentioned "event" since '09 when one of my very first predictions was that it would take "and external 'event' out of 'their' control to bring this market down." And of course you all know that STB has been discussing the diminishing returns of QE on the markets for well over a year now. 

Predictions, schmedictions. With the ECB rate cut we get to see yet another bankster trump card played. Why it took them so long to decide to charge themselves less money is beyond me? Were they making too much money off themselves? I don't get it. I guess the proper term would be 'circle jerk', and the ECB in this case is the pivot man. Bottom line dog and pony show, lipstick on a pig, describe it as you will, this is nothing more than another form of extend and pretend to keep the banks life support machines running at full tilt.

Trickle down? This rate cut is to benefit you, the sheeple. Ha! The only thing flowing down to the sheeple is misery in the form of increasing austerity, inflation and more capital controls as the rape of the middle class gets stepped up a notch. This is a move for the media. A move that few sheeple will understand and will be spun as something they are doing to help you, the little guy, out. Don't be fooled. It, as everything is, is all about them, their profits, bonuses and survival, not you.

On to the markets -

Morning Charts 05/01/13 SPX /ES

Believe it or not, I'm still having a tough time getting my head around the severe level of corruption and manipulation. Not only in the markets, but it permeates almost every corner of the globe, every business, everything financial. If you are not on the inside or bribing someone you are SOL. Ethics? Morals? HA! If you bring those to the game you've lost before you stepped on the court (and that's even true in the big business of religion). You better check those at the locker before playing this game.

It's like, hared to grasp at time how deep we are down the rabbit hole. Oh, I get it. I get where we are and where we are headed 100%. I have non wavering conviction on how horribly this will all end one day. It's how unglued, how dirty and corrupt we've become. How crushing your neighbor or employees has become a badge you wear with pride all in the name of gathering the most dollars. It's just sickening.

I guess we deserve what we all get in the end. The greedy ones will get their due, and the passivists that let it all happen will learn their lessons as well. It's just so sad it had to come to this. I guess it is human nature. History repeats its self, and we refuse to learn from it as a few bad marbles game the system, take control and then corrupt the rest. Boy are our founding fathers laughing at us now. Well, either that or they are really pissed off, cause if they knew they were gonna sacrifice everything, even their lives for this shit I think they would have taken a pass and sailed on to the next semi-uninhabited chunk of land.

On to the markets -