Market Montage

The market put in another solid week, with Tuesday (FOMC + JPMorgan dividend) dominating the action.  The small break of support (20 day) on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ two Tuesdays ago, which seemed to be the first chance of any sort of correction this year, was quickly put to rest with a rumor of sterlized quantitative easing floated in the WSJ the very next morning.  And since then there has been no looking back.  At this point talking of 'corrections' and even 'pullbacks' makes one look foolish – which usually is a good sign there is one around the corner.  But as readers know, we no longer work in normal markets but ones flooded with central banking "not so invisible" hands.  …

Today is an excellent example of why the senior indexes won't quit even as a lot of stocks pullback and semi-correct.  Monday we had utilites / dividend / safety stocks run.  Tuesday it was "everything", but led by financials post FOMC meeting and especially consumer related (housing, retail).   The same two groups dominated Wednesday, but pro growth cyclical industrials kicked in.  REITs were also hot in the first half of the week. …

It appears the answer is yes.  After a few decades of the 'financilization' of all things in America – the past few years seems to have turned the tide (somewhat) away from a massive funnel of the best and brightest college grads deposited directly into the palms of Wall Street.  I'd note this specifically for Harvard B-school which is cited in the story below - that is the epicenter of future Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan-ites.  Anything that gets some of these brains into more of the 'production' (or even 'service') parts of the economy, rather than the 'toll takers' is a plus in my book.  It seems quite a sea change might be happening, as more want to be the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg rather than the next person "doing God's work". …