Submitted by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,
This wasn’t part of the rosy scenario.
The Merchandise World Trade Monitor by the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, a division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, tracks global imports and exports in two measures: by volume and by unit price in US dollars. And the just released data for January was a doozie beneath the lackluster surface.
Big banks usually promise their clients all sorts of good things and always continue to issue recommendations to continue to invest in stocks and bonds (obviously to rake in their fees), UBS chartists and technicians Muller and Riesner have now publicly stated we might have seen another top of the S&P 500 index.
Once upon a time Hugh Hendry was one of the world's most prominent financial skeptics, arguing with anyone who would listen that the status quo is doomed and that central planning will never work.
It appears the complete decoupling from economic reality of the so-called US equity 'market', combined with the collapse in a data-dependent Fed's credibility - topics we have extensively covered - has reached the mainstream. Barron's always-insightful Randy Forsyth exposes the ugly reality that this is a "Bullard" market and we are just living in it as the flip-flopping Fed head is "the most visible telltale of the shifting winds of Fed expectations.
Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
At the beginning of this month, I discussed the monthly statistics for March. To wit:
“It is often the case that the month following a negative return month will post a positive return as markets bounce from oversold conditions. However, as shown below, this is not always the case.