This Week's Message: Traders oblivious, for now, to hugely impactful stuff...

Bringing you this week's message a day early. Tomorrow I'll be tying up a few loose ends; possibly implementing a marginal move in portfolios that we've decided upon but have been fiddling a bit with in terms of entry point(s). Today's action impacted pricing to the point that may have us holding off a bit, or going even more incrementally. I.e., one thing we absolutely are these days is patient. Not that we aren't normally, but, trust me, the time to be uber-patient in your core investment decisions is when the rest of the world isn't.

When You "Typically" (as in no guarantees) See This Sort of Price Action

Bloomberg's "macro man" Cameron Crise made his case this morning as to why stocks are historically risky right here. Should sound very familiar to regular readers.

Morning Note: Never-Changing Human Nature -- And -- Don't Hold Your Breath

Asian equities traded mostly lower last night, with 10 of the 16 markets we track closing in the red. Same for Europe so far this morning; 14 of 19 bourses trading lower. In the U.S. the Dow (thanks in no small measure to JP Morgan and Boeing), up 70 points as I type, is bucking declines in the Nasdaq (-1.3%) and the S&P 500 (-5%). The Russell 2000 is flat to start the day.

People Doin Stuff....

Today's Dow gave back a 500+ point rally to close flat, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq both gave up notable gains, and some, down nearly 1% and 2% respectively. Smallcaps rallied after their muted open, but gave it all back, and some, as well, closing down 1.4%.

Morning Note

Asian equities picked up where the U.S. left off Friday, with all but 2 of the 16 markets we track closing higher last night. Europe's following suit this morning, with only 3 out of 19 bourses trading lower this morning. The U.S. (save for small caps) remains in rally mode; the Dow's up 310 points as I type, the S&P 500 is trading higher by .9%, the Nasdaq's up 1.3% and the Russell 2000 is flat.

Fed Put Suffices

Sharing below my characterizations (in terms of what they say about the state of the equity market) of the multiple analyses we perform on a weekly basis:

Macro Update

Our proprietary macro index improved by 5.77 points this week to -38.46. While a long way from positive, and still screaming deep recession, that's a far cry from the -82.69 it scored back on June 1st.