| Index | Close | % Change |
|---|
| Dow | 37735.24 | -0.65 |
| Dow Transports | 15388.15 | -0.71 |
| Dow Utilities | 848.75 | -0.72 |
| S&P 500 | 5061.82 | -1.2 |
| Nasdaq | 15885.02 | -1.79 |
| Nasdaq 100 | 17706.83 | -1.65 |
| Russell 2000 | 1973.04 | -1.5 |
| VIX Index | 19.23 | 11.09 |
| 10 Year Gov't Yield | 4.62 | 2.13 |
| Spot Gold | 2385.25 | 1.74 |
| Spot Silver | 28.87 | 3.54 |
| GDX-Gold Miners | 33.52 | -0.71 |
| Crude Oil | 85.6 | -0.07 |
| Dollar Index | 106.19 | 0.15 |
| Euro Spot | 1.06 | -0.17 |
| Japanese 10 Year | 0.86 | 1.17 |
| Shanghai SE | 3057.38 | 1.26 |
| Long Bond 20-year | 114.31 | -1.64 |
|
Bonds Worse Than Bombs For Stocks
04-15-2024By now everyone knows that the Iranian "attack" on Israel was apparently somewhat halfhearted. I say that because it was so well telegraphed and did no damage. What Iran's ultimate goal is and what this means I don't know, but I find it hard to believe that such a tentative attempt was all that they had in mind. Nonetheless, after the rumors roiled markets on Friday, the actuality had no real impact except to cause any trades put on in anticipation of serious damage to be unwound.
Sudden Non-Impact
In other macro news, today's retail sales report was stronger than expected and last month was revised higher. The net of that produced an equity rally that was mostly eradicated by midday, with the indices just barely green. Then in the afternoon, sellers got the upper hand and buried the tape, with the Nasdaq leading the way, as it lost 2%.
Away from stocks, green paper was about flat while fixed income was absolutely hammered. The retail sales report appeared to be the catalyst, though bonds were heavy in front of that. Perhaps the prospect of so much supply is weighing on that market.
Turning to the metals, they were wildly volatile again, higher overnight, weaker early, and then higher as the day evolved. Ultimately, gold gained 2% while silver was 3% higher. The miners, however, were hit as though gold was weaker -- that of course after not rallying all that significantly in the first place. My working hypothesis is that whenever this gold/miner correction ends, the next leg up will see the miners finally get in gear, but obviously until that happens it's just a theory.
All the News That Gives You Fits
On a slightly different topic, we all know that the mainstream media is absolutely pathetic in that virtually every article written these days is an op-ed and most of it is arguing from a false premise to a false conclusion. I haven't spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly why that has occurred, because what really matters is the fact that we don't have a functioning mainstream media.
Matt Taibbi, for those who don't know, for a long time wrote for Rolling Stone and up until about five years ago I think most people would have considered him to be pretty liberal. Now the liberals have moved so far to the left that his "colleagues" now treat him like a right winger, although his politics haven't changed.
Cold Off the Presses
In any case, he wrote an article Friday about how we came to this sorry state in the media and in it he was discussing the recent machinations at NPR. I thought his concluding paragraph was so succinct about how we got to this place that I thought I would share it.
"Once someone determined Trump was so bad it was OK to lie about him, it set the precedent that the only thing that mattered was a subject's politics. If you were on the right side, you got fairness, but if you weren't, you didn't. That in turn turned reporters into political judges. Previously your politics didn't matter, since it was the audience making the judgements. We were taught to go after anything that smelled interesting and to be at least a little coy about revealing political leanings, if we had meaningful ones at all.
"You see even Berliner, an NPR lifer, talking about how 'the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched' in the Hunter Biden laptop story, passed over by NPR 'because it could help Trump.' I seriously doubt Berliner had a major desire to go after Hunter Biden, but all journalists used to get equally horny for any big story. What are reporters supposed to do now, close their eyes and think of baseball statistics?"
Again, knowing why the media is worthless doesn't help much, but I think that fact is still worth noting.