Business

Submitted by Daniel Drea via Dark-Bid.com,

On Sunday, we warned readers that the iPath OIL ETN was trading at a 36% premium to its fair value. Today, we witnessed the brutal consequences of a two-class market where institutional traders steamroll the clueless retail investor. The OIL ETN plummeted by 17%, representing a loss of $126 million. Today's trading volume was 36.6 million vs average volume of 3.8 million, as institutional selling absolutely crushed retail investors.

US manufacturing PMI printed a preliminary 52.7 for January, boucing from the 38-month lows of December and above expectations as output and new business improved (somewhat aberrantly given every other indication). This is still the 2nd lowest print for US manufacturing since October 2013. It's not all great news though as job creation dropped to 4-month lows "softer overall employment growth reflected a wait-and-see approach to staff recruitment at the start of the year and, in some cases, the need to focus on efforts to reduce costs."

Stocks are rallying this morning.

They are not rallying because of a change in fundamentals.

They are not rallying because of a significant debt restructuring.

They are not rallying because of great quarterly results from key economic bell-weathers.

They are rallying because of hope for more Central Bank stimulus.

This is the game traders have played for weeks now. Every time it has ended in failure.

AMEX is crashing, down over 9%, following lower revenues and weak guidance...

Analysts are jumping ship...

RBC Capital Markets’ Jason Arnold cut the stock to Underperform and sliced $10 off his target, to $59, citing the company’s guidance:

Despite promising more QQE if necessary (having said that more asset purchases threaten the nation's central bank's balance sheet just a week ago), it appears BoJ Governor Kuroda's comments on inflation expectations and oil prices have stalled the exuberant "global stimulus" rally (albeit briefly).

Kuroda muttered the following: