Business

Once again the narrative spewing forth from today's Fed speakers is that "the market is too pessimistic" presumably meaning the bond market because stocks are near record highs; and crucially, that despite collapsing industrial production, plunging GDP expectations, near-record inventories, and weakness in employment data that the US economy is "doing well" and that "June is a live meeting" for a rate hike... the equity market is not amused...

While we are not sure if the market has finally had time to actually read Goldman's oil note from Sunday night (posted here at the same time) and understand that far from bullish Goldman actually warned that the market rebalancing is taking far longer and as a result is lowering its 2017 price targets, there was one additional curious highlight in the report: Goldman's breakdown of critical prices bands for oil which actually is a useful guide for how the broader market (if devoid of momentum-chasing algo traders) would respond with oil trading in any given price i

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

Geography charts the financial destiny of households, at least in terms of housing.

Everyone who follows the statistics of rising income and wealth inequality knows we're becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. What's not being discussed is the role of housing.

Last night, following 15 consecutive weeks of client selling, we asked - rhetorically - if today the selling by BofA's smart money clients would stretch to a new record 16 consecutive weeks.

Will it be a record 16 consecutive weeks of smart money outflows? Find out tomorrow

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 17, 2016

Earlier today we received the BofA update, as well as the answer: a resounding yes.

Here is BofA:

Much was made of Berkshire's unexpected infatuation with AAPL yesterday (which was not actually driven by Buffett but by one of his new ex-hedge fund heirs, Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, who have "shown a willingness to wade into other corners"), which catalyzed the recently beaten down stock's biggest surge in months.  Not as much was made of the selling in AAPL in the first quarter, but perhaps it should have been because while the Top 20 buyers of AAPL stock added a grand total of 101.5 million shares, the Top 20 sellers liquidated 50% more, or 157.5 million.