Business

For those who follow the monthly consumer credit report released by the Fed there was nothing surprising in today's release of the latest Household Debt and Credit Report by the New York Fed. It reports that total household debt rose to $12.12 trillion in Q4, up from $11.83 trillion a year ago...

...mostly as a result of soaring student and auto debt, both trends we have observed on various occasions in the recent and not so recent past.

While the S&P 500 held support at January low (1,812) yesterday (and October 2014's Bullard bounce lows), BMO's Russ Visch warns "it may not hold in the days ahead" due to weak market breadth.

Given the ongoing collapse in market breadth (now breaking well below January's lows), BMO's Visch adds...

Every quarter members of the Fed meet with 12 representatives of the U.S. banking industry who comprise the Federal Advisory Council.  This is what the Fed says about this specific council:

Phil's article below was from yesterday morning, before today's big spike in oil prices (2-12-16). He follows up on Oil Fears Spook Investors (Again), from Monday.

Why is oil currently up almost 12%? "US crude surges as much as 12% on output-cut hopes." Hopes. 

(Screenshot: Yahoo's chart)

Markets Collapse as Sweden goes Negative & Oil Spills Over

From Thursday's article by Phil at Phil's Stock World

Following last week's dramatic 31 rig decline, Baker-Hughes reports another major decline of 28 oil rigs (dropping the total oil rigs to 439 - lowest since Jan 2010 - for the 8th consecutive week). The total rig count dropped 30. On the heels of OPEC rumors overnight and then re-rumored bullshit from Venezuela, oil prices had already surged during the day and the biggest 2-week rig count decline in 10 months after initially being sold, is rallying once again.