Written by Gary
Today’s midday session continues to trade quietly nears the session highs as wide swings in the oils and U.S. Dollar continue to delight traders and confuse investors. Volume has fallen to very low levels suggesting the HFT algo computers are keeping the market levels near their highs.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
 | North and South American markets are broadly higher today with shares in U.S. leading the region. The S&P 500 is up 1.30% while Mexico’s IPC is up 0.50% and Brazil’s Bovespa is up 0.22%. |
Stocks jump on strong April jobs report, Conservative win in UK election
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks jumped in midday trading today, helped by a report that showed employers were still hiring workers at a steady pace. Foreign markets were also rising following the results of the election in the United Kingdom, where the David Cameron’s Conservative Party won an outright majority in Parliament.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average rose 280 points, or 1.6 percent, to 18,203 as of 12:05 p.m. Eastern. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index added 29 points, or 1.4 percent, to 2,117 and the Nasdaq composite rose 66 points, or 1.4 percent, to 5,012. JOBS, JOBS, JOBS:
Investors cheered a report that showed U.S. employers added 223,000 jobs in April, a solid gain that suggests that the economy may be recovering after a stumbling start to the year. The unemployment rate fell to 5.4 percent from 5.5 percent in March, the lowest rate since May 2008.
Worker wage growth still weak despite hiring surge
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)—The U.S. had added 8.5 million new jobs since the start of 2012 and the unemployment rate has fallen to a seven-year low of 5.4%, But workers’ wages? They have barely budged.
Hourly wages for the average worker rose slightly in April to $24.87, but annual pay is rising no faster than it did three years ago. Read: U.S. adds 223,000 new jobs in April.
The rise in wages from April 2014 to April 2015 totaled 2.2%, just a notch higher from 2.1% in the prior month.
Traders Corner – Health of the Market
| Index | Description | Current Value |
| Investors.com Members Sentiment: | % Bullish (the balance is Bearish) | 69% |
| CNN’s Fear & Greed Index | Above 50 = greed, below 50 = fear | 48 |
| Investors Intelligence sets the breath | Above 50 bullish | 57.1% |
| StockChart.com Overbought / Oversold Index ($NYMO) | anything below -30 / -40 is a concern of going deeper. Oversold conditions on the NYSE McClellan Oscillator usually bounce back at anything over -50 and reverse after reaching +40 oversold. | -45.55 |
| StockChart.com NYSE % of stocks above 200 DMA Index ($NYA200R) | $NYA200R chart below is the percentage of stocks above the 200 DMA and is always a good statistic to follow. It can depict a trend of declining equities which is always troubling, especially when it drops below 60% – 55%. Dropping below 40%-35% signals serious continuing weakness and falling averages. | 58.06% |
| StockChart.com NYSE Bullish Percent Index ($BPNYA) | Next stop down is ~57, then ~44, below that is where we will most likely see the markets crash. | 62.52% |
| StockChart.com S&P 500 Bullish Percent Index ($BPSPX) | In support zone and rising. ~62, ~57, ~45 at which the markets are in a full-blown correction. | 65.20% |
| StockChart.com 10 Year Treasury Note Yield Index ($TNX) | ten year note index value | 21.14 |
| StockChart.com Consumer Discretionary ETF (XLY) | As long as the consumer discretionary holds above [66.88], all things being equal, it is a good sign for stocks and the U.S. economy | 76.65 |
| StockChart.com NYSE Composite (Liquidity) Index ($NYA) | Markets move inverse to institutional selling and this NYA Index is followed by Institutional Investors | 11,196 |
What Is Moving the Markets
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
| U.S. Stocks Jump After Jobs ReportU.S. stocks rose Friday after the employment report for April showed an economy continuing to grow, but at a pace that investors believe could keep the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates until late this year. |
| American Apparel ex-CEO Charney sues investor for defamation (Reuters) – Dov Charney, the ousted chief executive of American Apparel Inc , has filed a $30 million defamation lawsuit against a New York hedge fund that controls a large stake in the clothing company he founded, and which refused to support his return. |
| Jobs Vie With Growth for Fed’s AttentionJobs and economic growth aren’t traveling the same route. That makes it tougher for the Fed to pick a clear rates path. |
| Robotica Episode 2: Navy Robots Test the Limits of Autonomy Naval engineers are working to develop technology like self-driving cars that can clear the way for a convoy full of troops. But in field tests, the autonomous future still seems far away. |
| Job growth rebounds, keeps 2015 Fed rate hike in play WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. job growth rebounded last month and the unemployment rate dropped to a near seven-year low of 5.4 percent, signs of a pick-up in economic momentum that could keep the Federal Reserve on track to hike interest rates this year. |
| Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase Agree to Erase Debts From Credit Reports After Bankruptcies The two banks have agreed to update borrowers’ reports within the next three months to reflect that the debts were canceled. Bernadette Gatling, above, says she has lost job opportunities because employers saw debts on her credit report that had been voided. |
| Syngenta rejects $45 billion Monsanto takeover offer ZURICH/LONDON (Reuters) – Agrochemicals firm Syngenta on Friday rejected a $45 billion takeover offer from Monsanto, saying the offer undervalued the Swiss firm and did not fully take into account regulatory risks. |
| March 2015 Wholesale Sales and Inventory Data Continues to be Bad.Written by Steven Hansen The headlines say wholesale sales contracted year-over-year and inventory remains at levels associated with recessions. This data series is very noisy. Because of this noise, the best way to look at this series may be the unadjusted data three month rolling averages which decelerated for the eighth month in a row. This was another soft report. Read more … |
| Bursting Bund Bubble: 2 Charts And Some Lessons From HistoryOn Thursday we witnessed the culmination of what has been a weeks-long German Bund rout. At one point yesterday, yields on German 10s hit 77bps, up from below 10 in mid-April. The severity of the move has taken some (but certainly not us) off guard. For instance, Bill Gross — whose “short of a lifetime” call might have ironically been the catalyst for the sell-off — appears to have underestimated just how illiquid the market has become, because as we reported on Thursday, the Janus Unconstrained Bond Fund had taken a few rather large positions by the end of March which seemed to indicate that Gross was not anticipating his ‘big short’ call to play out so quickly. As we noted, all of this is the inevitable consequence of central bank actions which have quite literally broken the markets, meaning the last vestiges of “efficiency” went out the window a long time ago. His Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid with more:
So, as investors and traders ponder wh … |
| Greek PM forecasts ‘happy end’; Eurogroup chief cites progress in talks ATHENS/ROME (Reuters) – Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras forecast a happy end soon to fraught negotiations with creditors on a cash-for-reform deal, and the chairman of euro zone finance ministers said talks were making progress, though not enough for a deal next Monday. |
| Wall St. Gains After Solid Jobs Report Overseas markets were also higher after elections in Britain clarified the country’s political future. |
| In April There Were 26 Waiters And Bartenders For Every Manufacturing Job AddedSeveral years ago (and then subsequently renewed almost every year) Barack Obama unviled a manufacturing initative during one of his countless teleprompted appearances before the nation, in which he promised to do everything in his power to boost the US manufacturing sector. It should therefore come as no surprise that in the month of April America’s attempts to rekindle a manufacturing renaissance have fizzled once again, with a tiny 1,000 manufacturing jobs added, following zero manufacturing jobs added the month before. Putting this in perspective, for every manufacturing job added in April there were 26 new waiters and bartenders confirming the “robustness” of America’s jobs recovery. The chart below shows the progression of how America is slowly but surely transforming from a manufacturing society to one of waiters and bartenders.
Perhaps a better way to show the transformation is the following: since the start of the second great recession in December 2007, there have been 1.4 million manufacturing jobs lost. They have been almost completely “offset” by the 1.3 million waiter and bartender jobs gained. In short: serving food is the new making stuff.
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| Wall St. extends gains after strong jobs data (Reuters) – Wall Street extended its gains in late morning trading on Friday after strong jobs data for April pointed to a pickup in the economy, which could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates only later in the year. |
| Nike backs Obama on trade with pledge to create 10,000 U.S. jobs PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) – Sports shoe maker Nike Inc put its weight behind President Barack Obama’s push for a trade deal with Asian countries on Friday with a promise to create up to 10,000 U.S.-based manufacturing jobs if the pact is approved. |
| Gasoline Prices Rev Up for SummerGasoline prices have been rising, spurred by a rebound in crude oil and also in anticipation of strong demand this summer. Despite recent gains, prices at the pump remain lower than in recent years. |
| Buying-Panic Sends Nasdaq Green On The Week Amid Europe’s 2nd Best Day In 4 YearsUK election surprise raises Brexit referendum risk; Greek default imminent; Payrolls miss and revised drastically weaker… can only mean one thing – front-run central banks and panic-buy stocks and bonds… Think we are exaggerating the panic… the opening TICK count was the highest in 3 years!!!
Nasdaq finally made it back into the green…
and European Stocks have their best day in 5 months… (and 2nd best in 4 years!)
after shitty jobs numbers in America sparked a surge in Europe…
Charts: Bloomberg |
| Payrolls Pump Deja Vu All Over AgainWhat happens next? Another squeeze…
but we seem to have moved a little fast this time…
Chart: Bloomberg |
| British Pound, Stocks RallyU.K. markets rallied as Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party swept to victory in the U.K. election, drawing far stronger support than expected. |
| 01 May 2015: ECRI’s WLI Emerges Into Positive TerritoryECRI’s WLI Growth Index which has spent 28 weeks in negative territory – has now passed into positive territory and is now forecasting positive growth later this year. ECRI released their inflation index for April and is discussed below. Read more … |
| Europe “Baffled” By Bizarre Varoufakis “Blueprint”As Greek PM Alexis Tsipras implores EU officials to help him give Greece a happy ending, and as Germany goes into Monday’s eleventh hour bailout discussions with characteristically “low expectations,” Athens’ freewheeling FinMin has blessed us with several amusingly contradictory soundbites over the last 24 hours. To wit: VAROUFAKIS: ‘PLENTY OF COMMON GROUND’ IN TALKS ON GREEK PROGRAM VAROUFAKIS SEES ‘SEEDS OF FRAGMENTATION’ IN THE EU VAROUFAKIS: GREECE PREPARED TO ‘GO TO THE WIRE’ IN AID TALKS VAROUFAKIS SAYS WE WILL CERTAINLY HAVE AGREEMENT IN NEXT 2 WKS Fortunately for Greek pensioners (whose payments were recently delayed when Athens briefly ran out of money experienced a “technical glitch”) and for Greeks in general (who, while averse to the adoption of further austerity measures, still support euro membership presumably because they now understand that an exit will lead, in short order, to a deep depression), Varoufakis was recently removed from Tsipras’ bailout team starting lineup and relegated to the role of smug sixth man after the embattled FinMin did more lecturing than negotiating in Riga last month, sending his EU counterparts into a rage. However, if the last three months have proven anything, it’s that since Syriza’s ascendancy, negotiations with Athens generally adhere to the following variation of Murphy’s Law: “If Varoufakis can mess it up, Varoufakis will mess it up.” As such, we weren’t surprised to learn that while the Greek PM has been hard a … |
| U.S. Urges Greece to Reject Russian Energy Project The State Department hopes to convince Athens to choose a Western-backed project that would link Europe to natural gas supplies in Azerbaijan. |
| This Time It’s Different for Investors? No—and YesThe lessons to be learned from ‘the four most dangerous words’ in investing. |
| Fiat Chrysler seeks new trial, says April award ‘grossly excessive’ DETROIT (Reuters) – Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has asked for a new trial following one that ended early in April with a Georgia jury awarding $150 million to the family of a 4-year-old boy killed in a fiery crash involving at 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee. |
| Bill Simmons and ESPN to Part Ways John Skipper, the president of ESPN, said on Friday that the company would not renew its contract with Simmons, who built himself into a major brand, when it expires in the fall. |
| Strong U.S. dollar pressures jobs at exporters WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The sharp rise in the U.S. dollar’s value is hitting American exporters and forcing layoffs at makers of everything from steel to machinery, taking the shine off stronger job creation across the broader economy. |
| Your Money Adviser: Tax Documents: What to Shred, and What to Keep Tax returns and divorce decrees may be useful to keep for a lifetime, but many financial documents can be stored on a flash drive, or even destroyed. |
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