Stocks rally, Wall Street in "fantasyland"
Finance Trends Matter — ... proposed a new agency to pump capital into financial companies. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 4.3 percent as 68 companies in the gauge rose more than 10 percent. " ...

Stocks tumble, bonds rally on bailouts
Finance Trends Matter — ... proposed bailout bill and fears of global bank failures. Bloomberg has more in, "Stocks worldwide tumble most since 1997, bonds rise on bailouts": "Stocks around the world fell the most since October 1997, the euro and the pound sank and bonds rose as governments raced to prop up banks infected by growing U.S. mortgage losses. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 3.8 percent after Wachovia ...

Hedge Funds Have Worst Month on Record
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... Price swings also made trading difficult, investors said. The S&P 500 rose or fell more than 4 percent on six trading days in the month, compared with once in the previous eight months. ...

A week of global rate cuts?
Finance Trends Matter — ... The Standard & Poor's 500 Index retreated 5.9 percent, extending the worst weekly slump since 2001, as concern slower global growth will curb demand for commodities sent Alcoa Inc. and U.S. Steel Corp. down more than 7 percent. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index headed for its biggest loss in at least two decades and exchanges in Russia and Brazil halted trading. Europe's ...

Bloomberg: 2000s Stock Market Worse than 1930s
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... Even the 1930s are looking better for U.S. stock investors after the credit crisis wiped out more than $6 trillion from equities in the past year. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 18 percent since the start of 2000 after sinking 11 percent this month, total return data compiled by Bloomberg show. The decline would be the first for a decade in 70 years and exceeds the 8.9 percent plunge in the 1930s, following the stock ...

Record point rally for Dow & market views
Finance Trends Matter — ... The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rebounded from its worst week in 75 years with an 11.6 percent advance, its steepest since 1939, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed more than 936 points. ...

Bloomberg: Turmoil May make Americans Savers; Worsening 'Nasty' Recession
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... From 1960 until 1990, households socked away an average of about 9 percent of their after-tax income, Commerce Department figures show. But Americans got out of the saving habit starting in the 1990s as they saw their wealth build up in other ways, first through surging stock prices and later through soaring home ...

Readings: RIL’s refinery, Kuwait market closed, Turnaround thursday for US
GalaTime — ... Declines in midday trading today pushed the S&P 500 to 35 percent below its average for the past 200 days, only the second time that’s happened since the Great Depression. The last time was a day before the index rose 12 percent on Oct. 13, the biggest rally since 1939. ...

The Dow, S&P, Marc Faber, and Gold
Finance Trends Matter — ... "The S&P 500 lost 2.4 percent to 751.44 at 12:56 p.m. in New York, below its lowest close since April 1997. The Dow Jones Industrial Average decreased 157.14 points, or 2.1 percent, to 7,208.53, below its lowest close since October 1997. The Russell 2000 Index lost 2.8 percent. " ...

Bloomberg: Dividends Falling Means S&P500 is Still Expensive
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... .... predictions based on dividends show shares are overvalued by as much as 46 percent. (errr.... uh oh) The measure, which values a stock as the sum of all its future dividends, shows equities are still overpriced. With S&P 500 companies projected to pay a combined $25.27 in dividends this year, the index would need to fall to 526.46 before investors are compensated for owning shares. The analysis assumes investors expect total returns of 6 percent annually from stocks, including a 1.2 percent increase in dividends, which is the ...

Readings: February summary, European unrest, Buffett bets
GalaTime — ... Berkshire, where Buffett serves as chairman, chief executive officer and head of investing, suffered as the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 Index turned in its worst year since 1937. Liabilities on derivatives linked to world equity markets widened by 49 percent to $10 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, though the contracts don’t require Berkshire to pay out until at least 2019, if at all. ...

Graham 'Cracker'
Technically Speaking, Market Analysis and Theory — ... . At the bottom of the three worst recessions since 1929, the average ratio fell below 10. To reach that level, the S&P 500 would sink another 27 percent. ...

Morgan Stanley Forecast
Slope Of Hope with Tim Knight — ... The New York-based bank also reduced its year-end S&P 500 forecast by 15 percent to 825, joining four other Wall Street firms that cut their estimate in the past three weeks as stocks tumbled. The average year-end prediction for the S&P 500 is now 983, compared with 1,078 at the start of 2009, based on a Bloomberg News survey. ...

Bloomberg: Roubini Says Stocks Will Drop as Banks Go Belly Up
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... equity rebound in March that sent the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to its best monthly advance in 17 years is a “bear-market rally” and U.S. Treasury yields will “remain relatively low” as investors flock to the safest assets, Roubini said. Treasury Secretary ...

Readings: Risk premium, Power of AS-11, Bull by night & bear by day
GalaTime — ... Buying futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, or a fund that replicates the benchmark for U.S. equities, just as the trading session ends and selling them when the market opens the next day has yielded 309 percent since 1993, New York-based analyst ...

Market Monday's
The Bonddad Blog — ... While the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 28 percent from a 12-year low on March 9, CEOs, directors and senior officers at U.S. companies sold $353 million of equities this month, or 8.3 times more than they bought, data compiled by Washington Service, a Bethesda, Maryland-based research firm, show. That’s a warning sign because insiders usually have more information about their companies’ prospects than anyone else, according to ...

Ken Heebner's Trading for CGM Focus (CGMFX) Tripled in 2008
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... $18 million in commissions on $29 billion of transactions in 2007. Investors poured into CGM Focus during the first six months of last year, after it returned 80 percent in 2007, the most among U.S. diversified stock funds. That forced Heebner to increase stock purchases. As returns fell through 2008, shareholders bailed out, requiring the manager to sell assets. CGM Focus ended the year with a 48 percent loss, compared with a 37 percent decline by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Martha Maguire, a spokeswoman for Capital Growth ...

Back to the VIX Future
Daily Options Report — ... Options traders are increasing wagers that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s 34 percent rally in the past two months is coming to an end. ...

Robert Prechter of Elliot Wave Theme Still Extremely Bearish
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... The price-earnings ratio on the S&P 500 was about 60 at the end of last year, based on 2008 profits, according to data compiled by S&P. In prior bear-market lows, the measure sank to 6 or 7, Prechter said. “That gives you a flavor for how much the market’s going to have to come down, or earnings will have to suddenly soar,” he said. ...

Short Sales on S&P 500 Reach 3 Month Low
Fund My Mutual Fund — For the contrarian investor the headline alone has to raise an eyebrow... from personal experience except for 1 week in the past 10 all efforts to short have been met with a bright explosion of light. That of a speeding train just before it ran me over. I can understand the positioning because all long side gains have been quickly wiped out by almost any sensible short hedging. That said, at some point when everyone has "turned" coat from short to long - the market will usually inflict the most pain and reverse. But I've been thinking that for a month now - it's been right to buy all dips, and with 2 hands outstretched for a ...

Bloomberg: Active Mutual Fund Managers beat S&P 500 By Most in 26 Years
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... Mutual-fund managers who pick stocks are beating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by the widest margin in 26 years by buying shares of midsize companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and Seagate Technology. ...

Skew That
Daily Options Report — ... Downside skew, which gauges the relative cost of buying insurance against a slide in stocks, is now higher than it was when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped to a 12-year low on March 9. That indicates a “relatively high chance of downside moves,” the brokerage wrote in a report dated yesterday. ...

Is Put Demand a Sign for the Bulls?
Minyanville — ... "Downside skew, which gauges the relative cost of buying insurance against a slide in stocks, is now higher than it was when the S&P 500 dropped to a 12-year low on March 9. That indicates a 'relatively high chance of downside moves."Global equity markets are beginning to falter after 3 straight months of gains in March, April, and May. The S&P 500 has retreated 5.4% since June 12, bringing an end to the benchmark s biggest 3-month rally in more than 70 years amid concern that the global recession may yet deepen. 'The sharp move higher in risky assets off the early March ...

Bloomberg: Correlation Among Asset Classes Highest Ever
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... Investors are moving in lockstep like never before, driving up stocks, commodities and ...

Bloomberg: Taking Wall Street's Advice Means Owing $6000
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... , who helps oversee $18.5 billion as head of equities at Groupama Asset Management in Paris. “This is a technical rally, a rally of sentiment. Analysts were too defensive. There was an inflection point and they didn’t see it.” ...

John Hancock Technical Opportunites Fund (JCTAX) Becomes 2nd Technical Analysis Based Mutual Fund to Launch
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... John Hancock Funds is betting its money-management clients are ready for Bollinger bands, Moving Average Convergence/Divergence and the ...

International Forecaster August 2009 (#9) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
GoldSeek.com — ... , which Intercontinental Exchange Inc. uses to track the U.S. currency against the euro, yen, pound, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc and the Swedish krona, has weakened as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. shares gained more than 85 percent of the time since June and more than 50 percent of the time since September as investors sought higher-yielding assets on signs on an economic recovery. The index fell 11 percent from its high this year on March 4, during which time the S&P 500 gained 44 percent. The index was little changed at 78.592 as of 7:29 a.m. in New York . S&P ...

Paul Tudor Jones, Clarium Capital Not Buying Green Shoot Theory
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... Jones’s Tudor Investment Corp., Clarium Capital Management LLC and Horseman Capital Management Ltd. are taking a bearish stand as U.S. stock and bond prices rise, saying that record government spending may be forestalling another slowdown and market selloff. The firms oversee a combined $15 billion in so- called macro funds, which seek to profit from economic trends by trading stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities. ...

CEO Pay at TARP Banks 37% Higher than the Average Bear
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... Chief executive officers at 20 banks that got U.S. aid received compensation 37 percent higher than the average for leaders at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies and may be poised for gains as stock values rise, a study showed. ...

PUMP n PUMP
The HardHead Fund — ... While the strategists raised estimates by an average of 5.8 percent from March this year, they’re divided on whether the U.S. economy will be strong enough to justify further revisions. The last time the S&P 500 rose above the consensus was in 2006, when Wall Street responded by increasing projections, helping spur an 11 percent advance that ended when the index hit a record high in October 2007. ...

Fed talks up recovery, but is it real?
Finance Trends Matter — ... The 58 percent rally in the S&P 500 since March 9 has left the gauge trading at about 20 times its companies’ reported profits from continuing operations, the highest level since 2004, according to data compiled by Bloomberg." ...

Steve Leuthold of Leuthold Core Investment (LCORX) Mutual Fund Remains a Roaring Bull - S&P to 1200 in 2009, 1350 in 2010
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... has beaten 95 percent of its rivals in the past five years, said the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will jump to 1,350 next year as the economy recovers from the worst contraction since the Great Depression. ...

Robert Prechter of Elliott Wave Sticking to His Bearish Bets; No Change to Call for New Lows
Fund My Mutual Fund — ... The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will probably fall “substantially below” 676.53, the 12-year low reached on March 9, he said. The measure surged as much as 58 percent to 1,071.66 in the ensuing seven months on signs the recession is ending. His projection implies a drop of more than 34 percent from last week’s close. Technical analysis, Prechter’s field since 1975, involves making predictions based on price and volume history. ...