The Syrian parliamentary election on Tuesday was a vote of confidence by the people for their government. Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Party and its allies won the majority of the votes according to official results with 5,085,444 voters casting their ballots out of a possible 8,834,994 eligible voters. Press TV reports: The Syrian electoral commission announced late Saturday that the National Unity coalition, comprising the ruling party and its allies, had won 200 of the 250 seats at the People’s Assembly (Majlis al-Sha’ab).

Judging by the exuberant equity market, it is not 'low' gas prices, but high gas prices that are "unequivocally good" for America - after all the market is ultimate arbiter of how the average joe feels, right? However, if you drive a car - or gas-hungry truck - you may have noticed something in the last month or so - gas prices at the pump are up almost 25% from the mid-Feb lows, the biggest surge since July 2009.

Submitted by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

Eric Hunsader, founder of Nanex, has been at the vanguard of warning about the dangers and the rampant fraud that the rise of high-frequency trading (HFT) algorithims have let loose in today's financial markets.

There were some rumors reported late last week that the world's biggest chip maker was about to fire a major portion of its workforce. Moments ago the company confirmed these rumors, when it reported that it was firing a whopping 11% of its entire workforce, laying off a massive 12,000 workers.

From the report:

We get the clear impression today that we heard this from the depths of The Eccles Building...

As earnings offer little to no support whatever here....