Many people think the stock market is complex.. the ins and outs..
Of course it isn't.
Its remarkably simple-- the market i.e. those who work at Wall Street and profit from it, thinks and functions much like a primitive base animal.
It only knows two functions: to feed and to flee.
Since we have so many new readers daily, we have to re-explain concepts that loyal followers already understand, so to those faithful, pardon us for some repetition.
So the Dow is down -158pts as of 12:40p
And even though usually there's no rhyme or reason for this other than the basic feed/flee principle, the media must say its 'something' so the reasoning is Japan's Nikkei index falling 4% last night.
And of course, when the Nikkei dropped almost 1200 pts on May 23, the US markets shrugged like they couldn't have given a shit, which was exactly how they felt about Nikkei and Japan itself (We'll never forget US Investors on TV a couple years back saying how excited they were after Japan's tsunami; it was a 'golden buying opportunity')
US markets responded that day by dropping 7 pts..
Oh but this is different, they say...
OK, why?
This headline from a news site called 'Quartz' may explain...
'Shinzo Abe’s “third arrow” fails to impress investors who wanted a bigger boost'
Abe is Japan's Prime Minister and the bigger 'boost' these rotten rats and roaches want is more Quantitative Easing.
See the whole world followed Bernanke's lead-- Europe does it.. Asia does it.. Makes Investors very happy carbunkles...
"Japan’s prime minister took the stage on Wednesday to announce the third pillar of his “Abenomics” suite of policies, designed to shake the country out of its decade-long economic slump .
It didn’t go very well. The Nikkei rose more than 1% as he started speaking, then within minutes reversed its gain, and then it kept falling, eventually closing down 3.8%.
It’s not that Abe’s plans were bad—they were just boring. ... shares are being sold because Abe’s plan didn’t have any surprises that meet overblown expectations in the market."
So let's bring this back to our primitive base animal comparison...
You sit at a doorstep and a mongrel dog passes by. For some goodness knows what reason, you wish to befriend the wild unkempt animal. So you whistle and toss it a steak bone. The dog stops in his tracks and gets the bone..
You keep tossing bones and the mongrel keeps coming for it until one day the bones aren't enough-- he wants actual steak. And for whatever fill-in-the-blank stupid reason for needing this mutt to like you (ask Bernanke why he appeases Investors-- same answer), you now toss quality steak the dog's way..
Eventually that's not good enough.. the rotten, filthy dog wants more-- a finer cut.. maybe two steaks.. So you oblige.. Whatever the dog wants, he gets...
Meanwhile the food budget has spiked dramatically and your own family is now eating less quality food because the steaks meant for them are going to a dog.. an unappreciative, mindless animal.
And what is this loser Bernanke-like human being to do? If he cuts back the steaks or quality of cut, that mongrel may leave and if that's supposedly no big deal, then why was that pathetic little man tossing expensive steaks at the dog every day from his front doorstep in the first place!?
When there's free 'food', base animals feed... when its gone, they 'flee'..
This is your stock market.
And the reason the Dow's been dropping is fear that either Bernanke or whoever replaces him next year will start to wind down infinite QE (those choice cut steaks)..
And Investors are seeing via Japan today that there really is no Option B -- Asia and Europe can't dump enough liquidity into the market to appease a primal base animal expecting to feed off the quantity Bernanke is pouring..
Here was a headline from Reuters on 6/1 that reinforces this view..
Good news on jobs may be bad for stocks -- "Standing conventional stock market wisdom on its head, investors may wish for weaker-than-expected employment numbers next Friday.
A strong jobs report could prompt an early end to the Federal Reserve's policy of pumping money into the banking system to rescue the economy and set off the stock market's long-awaited pullback."
Actually its not flipping conventional market wisdom on its head... The market does not want lower unemployment.. they want greater hiring of temps.
The more temps a company can hire while maximizing its profits, the greater return for the shareholders..
No one wants Fed targets for stopping QE met-- the Banks, the Corporations, the Investors, the Government.. even the Fed.
The 1% are making out like bandits off the 99% who are mainly oblivious to how dramatically their quality of life is being affected, and who among the elite really want to stop that gravy train??
According to CBS MoneyWatch, the wealth of most Americans is down 55% since the recession began...
"Increasing housing prices and the stock market's posting all-time highs haven't helped the plight most Americans. The average U.S. household has recovered only 45 percent of the wealth they lost during the recession, according to a report released yesterday from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
This finding is a very different picture than one painted in a report earlier this year by the Fed that calculated Americans as a whole had regained 91 percent of their losses."
Gee.. Wonder why an artificial housing market bump and fixed stock market hasn't helped the everyday person recoup their personal nest egg??
"Almost two-thirds of the increase in aggregate household wealth is due to rising stock prices. This has disproportionately benefited the richest households: About 80 percent of stocks are held by the wealthiest 10 percent of the population."
And here's the real butt-kicker.. many everyday folk are not entering the stock market as the lying-liar media likes to report.. They're actually Selling their shares in stocks as a means to come up with the necessary money to keep their lifestyles going as their expenses are rising and wages either flat-lined or decreasing.
Most stock purchases come from corporations and professional Investors.
The ultimate goal of A&G is to empower you to make the best choices in your own life to ride out or survive this current 6th year and counting recession-depression..
And in order to do this, we must provide you at all times an honest, candid assessment of the US economy without bells and whistles. We have no advertisers and do not charge even a penny to do what we do, so there's no one to appease or worry of offending..
If you believe we're in a sincere recovery and the market is a genuine reflection of this, you're likely to feel a false confidence that your specific economic situation will improve and thus spend accordingly..
We're trying to protect people as best we can from that.
Most people are Not wealthy.. They do Not have well-paying jobs that are secure.. They do Not have large nest-eggs amassed to bail them out if something unforeseen occurs..
The truth is this nation is economically in as bad if not worse shape than 2008, mainly because the powers that be have done absolutely nothing to attempt to sincerely remedy the situation.
The goal, like in all previous recessions is to do as little as possible while giving off confidence that a lot has improved.
This is meant to psychologically jump start a recovery where people spend based on hope and companies take that new profit and invest in hiring new workers who now have new revenue to spend, and on and on...
This manipulation doesn't work today-- too many spending on credit vs cash... too many getting deeper into debt.. For this recession-depression, the President and Congress must actually work together to come up with solutions...
And we know the likelihood of that.
This economy is extremely weak and while your friends and family may believe the lie, at least you know the truth because you seek out news sources like us at 'A&G'