I can't see my bird which can't, obviously, see! -g- All I can say is that the markets look extremely unhealthy. I can cite many examples but suffice it to say that you need only one piece of evidence - IBM going up 25 points in one day!!! My bird's last vision was that May should see a serious set back to bulls - not necessarily a crash but an approx 10%, 15% decline from top for DOW and DUNG. I expected this to have been led by AMZN, as I said earlier (#reply-9145140). Though my call on AMZN was right on, the market is yet to show real weakness. I guess the Perspiration makes it a difficult to read. When the liquidity is so low and the markets have not breaken to any dangerous levels, it gets easier for buy programs to undo any downside damage cuased by moderate volume with buy programs on light volume. I think that is what happening now (big sell off on moderate volume and steep reversals on low volume.) This indicates that the most dominant figure is still "fear of rising prices." The bonds are about to change that dynamic, I think ("I am hoping" is perhaps apt.)
I just spoke with a friend who lives on the left coast. He said that RE values in Silly valley are far worse than silly. (He cited an example that a house in Palo Alto was listed for 1.3 mil and was offered 2.3 mil!!) GreenSpam don't see these as Slick's administration gives him colored glasses. Well, gas aint cheap there either. Apparently, in social gathering, people talk only about 3 things: stocks, real estate and gas prices. Surprisingly, all of these have tremendous run-up recently. And today I heard an AP report that Silicon Valley execs are complaining that the industry lost an estimated $3 bil last year due to shortage of skilled workers. And hear this, they said pay is not a problem as long as they can find right people. No inflation? Yes and no. If the stocks are as high as they are, the inflation is alive and well. If the stock are dead, the inflation will morph in to deflation almost overnight. IMO.
I seriously doubt the authenticity of the housing start numbers Slick gave to the market this morning. As I always say, he is guilty until proven innocent.
So, it is prudent to expect:
Jim Grants, John Ps, Mike Burkes and defrockeds of the world will force some discipline to stock speculators by pushing bonds down. As soon as they are done with popping the bubble, they will start buying bonds. This act should achieve two primary objectives. 1) Leverage cleansing (leveraged bond players must be hurting really bad by now, I don't think they are close to being finished yet.) 2) Check speculation.
Disclaimer:
1) IDKJS
2) My ambition is to write fiction! -g- |
