When In Doubt, Lie

The precedent was set in March of 2009 when Bernanke and Geithner threatened the wimpy accountants at the FASB and forced them to waive the mark to market accounting rules, so the Too Big To Trust Wall Street Criminal Banks could lie and produce fictitious financial statements. When you’re insolvent, just make up the numbers…

S&P Rallies Past 38% Retracement

Well, I got this one wrong. I didn’t think the S&P had the juice to put in the day that it did, although volume was perhaps a little disappointing. Volume did enough to register an accumulation day, although buying volume was well down on previous selling volume. In terms of technicals, only On-Balance-Volume generated a…

US Housing

I am wondering why the rate of US house construction remains so low. I see two candidate explanations. The first is that lending standards remain very tight — the mortgage lenders having been very badly burnt once remain twice shy. The other is that potential house buyers no longer perceive owner occupied housing to be…

One Little Word

My dogs are telling me that there are squirrels running loose in the neighborhood that must be pursued, so I’ll make this quick. All it took was one little word – “catastrophic” – from a Fed governor to send the markets into a bullish orgy today. It wasn’t a good day for me, but I…