Dow Hits Another All Time High
The Dow hit another all-time high and Bloomberg tells us why. It's got to do with the jobless claims report. So what caused the first all-time high a few days before? Do you remember? I don't.
Well, let's not get bogged down here. Let's grab a piece of this article and see what we might learn:
Housing I can understand - sort of. We're all reading that the housing market is showing some positive strength. Some areas of the country report that there are even bidding wars for houses in certain neighborhoods. Foreclosures are down and sales are up...well, sort of. Foreclosures have declined because banks simply aren't releasing foreclosed homes onto the market - millions of them. They'd rather sit on them, or let delinquent mortgagees sit in them, rather than flood the market with houses, with the net effect of causing mortgages the banks hold to be seen for what they are: worth less than the banks claim they're worth: not good for bank balance sheets, wouldn't you say?
And what exactly is "potentially" construction? I suppose it's construction that's maybe, hopefully, we're thinking might actually take place at some indeterminate point in the future. After all, if actual construction was up, why not just say that.
Oh, another thing: Is it a sign that the labor market is healthy because there are more construction jobs? Sorry, I meant there may be more construction jobs at some indeterminate point in the future.
But let's not forget this: “We’re starting to see some health in some of those dormant areas of the economy, so quantitative easing and lower interest rates are finally having an impact and the stock market is of course telling us that.” Of course quantitative easing and lower interest rates (two sides of the same coin, by the way) are having an effect. Trillions of dollars of money printing can't help but have some effect at some point. The fact that it's taken what, five years, for all these trillions to generate some spark of life...well, we'll put that to the side for now.
And, by the way, don't bother to question this man's interpretation of what's going on out there. After all: the stock market is of course telling us that.”
Sound logic? But...of course!
Well, let's not get bogged down here. Let's grab a piece of this article and see what we might learn:
“There’s an underlying element of support for the labor market and it’s really driven by housing and potentially construction finally coming back,” Robert Lutts, chief investment officer of Cabot Money Management in Boston, which manages $500 million, said in a telephone interview. “We’re starting to see some health in some of those dormant areas of the economy, so quantitative easing and lower interest rates are finally having an impact and the stock market is of course telling us that.”What's an "underlying element of support for the labor market"? Sounds pretty mysterious, doesn't it, like it's something lurking "down there" somewhere prodding and spiking the labor market until it sort of springs to life? But rather than ponder the deeper meaning here, let's move on to what's driving this underlying level of support: housing and "potentially" construction.
Housing I can understand - sort of. We're all reading that the housing market is showing some positive strength. Some areas of the country report that there are even bidding wars for houses in certain neighborhoods. Foreclosures are down and sales are up...well, sort of. Foreclosures have declined because banks simply aren't releasing foreclosed homes onto the market - millions of them. They'd rather sit on them, or let delinquent mortgagees sit in them, rather than flood the market with houses, with the net effect of causing mortgages the banks hold to be seen for what they are: worth less than the banks claim they're worth: not good for bank balance sheets, wouldn't you say?
And what exactly is "potentially" construction? I suppose it's construction that's maybe, hopefully, we're thinking might actually take place at some indeterminate point in the future. After all, if actual construction was up, why not just say that.
Oh, another thing: Is it a sign that the labor market is healthy because there are more construction jobs? Sorry, I meant there may be more construction jobs at some indeterminate point in the future.
But let's not forget this: “We’re starting to see some health in some of those dormant areas of the economy, so quantitative easing and lower interest rates are finally having an impact and the stock market is of course telling us that.” Of course quantitative easing and lower interest rates (two sides of the same coin, by the way) are having an effect. Trillions of dollars of money printing can't help but have some effect at some point. The fact that it's taken what, five years, for all these trillions to generate some spark of life...well, we'll put that to the side for now.
And, by the way, don't bother to question this man's interpretation of what's going on out there. After all: the stock market is of course telling us that.”
Sound logic? But...of course!
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