Business

Moments ago Caterpillar reported its latest monthly retail sales statistics and the numbers have never been worse.

Following existing home sales post-regs change spike, new home sales (after 9 months of missed expectations) soared 10.8% in December to a seasonally-adjusted annualized rate of 544k (smashing expectations of just 500k). This is 1k short of the February 545k highs going back to Feb 2008. Median home prices dropped however (a good thing for affordability but not so much for The Fed's wealth illusion machine) to the lowest since May.

Home Sales (SAAR) soar..

And the good news (for affordability) is prices tumbled...

With analyst expectations almost 50% above Apple's current price, and only 1 "sell" recommendation among the 52 analysts covering the "no brainer" stock, one has to wonder how long it will be before the 45 "Buys" downgrade their permabullish perspective..

BGC's Colin Gillis and ABG Sundal Collier's Per Lindberg deserve some special recognition as the 2 least bullish analysts, but here is the Top 10 before last night's call...

Last week, we noted that Italy is rushing to defuse a €200 billion time bomb in the country’s banking sector as investors fret over banks’ exposure to souring loans.

“Italian banks’ share prices have been volatile YTD, given the market’s renewed fears over asset quality and potential developments on a possible bad bank creation,” Citi wrote, in a note analyzing which Italian banks are most exposed. “Total gross NPLs in Italy have increased by c160% since 2009 and now represents c18% of loans (vs c8% in 2009).”

The bounce of the last few days has investors wondering if the bottom is in.

Unfortunately, it very likely is not.

High Yield bonds have lead stocks to the upside. They are now leading to the downside, and the High Yield bond market indicates we have further to fall.

If this is not compelling enough consider that the microcap index, the Russell 2000, which leads the S&P 500 indicates stocks have a LONG ways to fall.