Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum via Acting-Man.com,
Dismal Earnings, Extreme Valuations
The current earnings season hasn’t been very good so far. Companies continue to “beat expectations” of course, but this is just a silly game. The stock market’s valuation is already between the highest and third highest in history depending on how it is measured.
The biggest catalyst for overnight markets, first reported on this site, was the announcement by Kuwait that its oil workers had ended their strike which disrupted oil production in the 4th largest OPEC producer for 3 days cutting it by as much as 1.7 mmb/d, and had served to offset the negative news from the Doha debacle. Kuwait Petroleum also added that it would boost output to 3m b/d within 3 days, which in turn has pressured the price of oil overnight, and the May WTI contract was back to just over $40 at last check, sliding 2%.
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Some critical observations on investor positioning from BofA's Michael Hartnett
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On April 28th the current bull market in the S&P500 will become the 2nd longest ever
3 observations:
1. Quantitative Success on Wall Street
The stock surge from February is at risk, warns BofAML's Stephen Suttmeier as a plethora of bearish divergences could cap further gains from here. 2044-2022 are key nearby S&P 500 support for April, but a loss of 2022 is required to break the last higher low from 3/24 and suggest a deeper decline for the S&P 500. The following 15 risk-factors - from VIX term structure steepness to Dow Theory Sell signals - all point to a retest of the recent 1810-1820 lows.