Written by Gary
Roller coaster Wednesday has had its ups and downs starting off in the red, sea-sawing sideways until the FMOC meeting, then climbing to new daily highs. The SP500 set another new historic high before swan diving to the morning lows, giving up earlier gains spurred by the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s April meeting that suggested an increase in interest rates wasn’t likely in June. The DOW tried to make a new high, but failed by a few cents.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
US stock market ends another listless day mixed after an afternoon advance fades; Etsy plunges
NEW YORK (AP) — A brief afternoon rally faded away on Wall Street, leaving indexes narrowly mixed on the day. The short-lived advance Wednesday came after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting suggested the central bank wouldn’t begin raising interest rates next month. The Dow Jones industrial average slipped 27 points, or 0.2 percent, to 18,285. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gave up two points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,125. The Nasdaq composite declined a point, less than 0.1 percent, to 5,071. All three indexes wavered between gains and losses throughout the day.
The Market in Perspective
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Global banks admit guilt in forex probe, fined nearly $6 billion NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Four major banks pleaded guilty on Wednesday to trying to manipulate foreign exchange rates and, with two others, were fined nearly $6 billion in another settlement in a global probe into the $5 trillion-a-day market. | |
Wall Street ends near flat after Fed minutes NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks ended flat on Wednesday as minutes from last month’s Federal Reserve meeting did little to change expectations of when the central bank may raise interest rates. | |
SEC Votes to Propose New Mutual Fund Reporting RulesThe Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5-0 Wednesday to significantly boost the volume of data the agency collects from the $60 trillion asset-management industry. | |
Stocks Slump After Liesman Reports GDP To Be “Double Seasonally-Adjusted” UpwardJust two days ago we pointed out that Janet Yellen’s San Francisco Fed has decided it’s time to take back the media spotlight from its Atlanta counterpart which, thanks to an incredibly prescient, real-time GDP forecasting machine, has managed to make the financial news quite often after we first highlighted the “nowcast” back in March. In sum, the San Fran Fed decided that the weak Q1 GDP data simply needed to be seasonally adjusted (again) in order to make it …well, less weak.
Got that? There was still some “residual seasonality” (i.e. the data still looked weak) in the Q1 print after the first round of seasonal adjustments, so in order to “correct” things, a second round of seasonal adjustments needs to be applied, after which the new figures should show that the economy did not in fact flatline in the first three months of the year. Of course if the numbers still don’t come out looking the way you want them, you can always rinse and repeat. As we put it two days ago:
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Five global banks to pay $5.7 billion in fines over rate rigging NEW YORK (Reuters) – Five of the world’s largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc, were fined roughly $5.7 billion, and four of them pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges over manipulation of foreign exchange rates, authorities said on Wednesday. | |
Greece says it will default in June without aid from lendersATHENS (Reuters) – Greece will not be able to make a payment to the International Monetary Fund due on June 5 unless foreign lenders provide more aid, a senior ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday, the latest warning from Athens that it is on the verge of default. | |
Suddenlink Deal by Altice Puts Foreign Spin on U.S. Cable Upheaval The European telecom company said it would buy a 70 percent stake in Suddenlink, a cable company with 1.5 million customers in 17 states. | |
Did The Sell-Side “Hopers” Just Give Up?Weather or no weather, even the sell-side’s most exuberant hope-mongers appear to be losing faith in ‘revisions’, ‘double-seasonals’, or ‘rebounds’ saving the US economy… h/t @Not_Jim_Cramer | |
Modest Gain for the Market After Release of Fed Minutes Documents showed that Fed officials are leaning against raising interest rates in June. Etsy shares swooned 23 percent after it reported a quarterly loss. | |
App Smart: Video Feature: As California Thirsts, These Apps Help Save Water Some of these apps help track one’s own water use, while others make it easy to publicly shame water wasters. | |
Fed officials see June rate hike as unlikely: minutesWASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Reserve officials believed it would be premature to raise interest rates in June and that a bump in inflation was being offset by a weaker labor market and softer data, according to minutes from the central bank’s April policy meeting. | |
Takata doubling U.S. recall for defective air bags to 34 million vehicles WASHINGTON/DETROIT (Reuters) – Japanese air bag manufacturer Takata Corp is doubling a recall of potentially deadly air bags to nearly 34 million vehicles, making it the largest automotive recall in American history, U.S. safety regulators said on Tuesday. | |
Markets Hit All Time High As Massive Spoofing Is Unleashed After FOMC MinutesUpdate- the illegal spoofing of stocks has now run over into bonds and the dollar… Stocks taking off to record highs… (except Trannies) * * * Surprise: stocks are up and everything else is flat thanks to the illegal miracle of spoofing by the same HFTs that moments ago the very Fed was blaming for soaking up liquidity. And for the CFTC readers out there, you know who you are, the massive spooffest is shown in Red. Remember: if the spoofing is higher, it’s legal. It’s only illegal if it sends the “market” lower. Why focus on Nasdaq? Well that’s easy – “spoof” Nasdaq futures higher, drags AAPL higher, which drags the other major indices higher due to its weighting and soon enough you have your momo ignited…
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For First Time Ever, The Fed Blames HFTs For Reduced LiquidityTen days ago, in “Why There Is No Treasury Liquidity In One Chart” we explained quite simply why there is no more Treasury market liquidity. To wit:
Today, for the first time ever and in a very shocking development, the Fed admitted not only that at least one half of this assessment of bond market liquidity is accurate but that what Zero Hedge has been saying since 2009: that HFTs do not provide liquidity but soak it up, has been absolutely correct. From the FOMC minutes:
As for the accuracy of the other half of our statement, which would entail the Fed admitting that term … | |
29 April 2015 FOMC Meeting Minutes: Lots Of Views Why Economy Is Soft But United In Not Raising Federal Funds RatesEconintersect: The 29 April 2015 meeting statement presented the actions taken. This post covers the economic discussion during this FOMC meeting between the members. The was a significant amount of discussion on the state of the economy and the zero bound monetary policy. It appeared the FOMC members were divided on what was actually happening to the economy but were more cohesive in believing this was not the time to raise the federal funds rate:
Read more … | |
Hilsenrath Confirms Hawkish Fed Sees Q1 Weakness As A Blip, June Liftoff PossibleIssued with light-speed typing and proofing, The Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath explains what we should think about the Fed’s minutes… Federal Reserve officials meeting in late April doubted they would be ready to raise short-term interest rates by midyear, according to minutes of the meeting released Wednesday. Fed officials are trying to make sense of a first-quarter economic slowdown. Many at the April 28-29 policy meeting believed temporary factors were holding the economy back. Before they lift rates, they want to be confident growth is on track, unemployment will keep falling and inflation will gradually rise toward their 2% goal. The minutes, released with the regular three-week lag, showed that only a few Fed officials thought they would have enough confidence those conditions would be met by the June 16-17 meeting.
Many Fed officials began the year believing they might start raising short-term interest rates from near zero by midyear, but the winter slowdown has sidetracked their plans. The Commerce D … |
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