Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
As the trumpets sound to signal the start of earnings season, the battle between fundamentals and “hope” begins. Despite weakening earnings, which on an as reported basis are far worse than the rather manipulated “operating” levels currently suggest, the bulls have remained steadfast in their belief that prices are on a one-way trip higher.
Moments ago the Fed's RRP operation totaled only $18.7 bln, the lowest level of participation since December 19, 2013 when the maximum bid per counterparty was only $1 bln compared to $30 bid since September 2014. In other words, program participants took only $18.7 billion worth of Treasury securities from the Fed, just months after the Fed expanded the reverse repo program to account for potentially hundreds of billions in reverse repo demand after the Fed's 25 bps rate hike.
Two years ago, there was nobody more bullish, or more apologetic of the poorly performing US economy than Deutsche Bank's chief US economist, Joe Lavorgna. Case in point: his Q1 2014 "explanations" why every negative print or consensus miss was due to the weather.
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Despite the day's rampacious rally in stocks and crude aftwer "unidentified sourtces" said a Russia-Saudi deal was done, Russia's Dmitry Peskov just issued a statement that "there is hope" for a deal at Doha. This sent stocks and crude jumping once again... even though we suggest "hope" for a deal is not "a deal."
With the ECB now unabashedly unleashing a bond bubble in Europe of which it has promised to be a buyer of last resort with the stronly implied hint that European IG companies should issue bonds and buy back shares, and promptly leading to the biggest junk bond issue in history courtesy of Numericable, it will come as no surprise that the world once again has a debt problem.