Janet Speaks, JPM Stuns & AAII Bulls On Parade

Janet speaks at 10 am EST.  Thank God they do live blogs now

JP Morgan reported earnings with shrinking revenues. No one cared. It's up almost 3% in the pre-market.

Core loans were up 8% y/o/y.  Sounds great.

Here's the caveat, buried in a footnote 10 pages later (emphasis added):

"Core loans include loans considered central to the Firm’s ongoing businesses; core loans exclude runoff portfolios, discontinued portfolios and portfolios the Firm has an intent to exit."

Is this why credit-loss provisions were $692 million, compared with a provision of $47 million a year earlier? That's a stunning 1372% increase. What do they know that they're not telling?

Is that why average loan balances in the commercial banking unit were $140.8 billion, up a cheerful-sounding 7% from a year earlier and 2% from the prior quarter? No one paying down their balances anymore?

Maybe loan growth, instead of picking up, is stalling.

We'll never know as long as the financial media is in charge. Best to watch the stock price.

All this coincides with the latest Investors Intelligence poll revealing more than 60% of the 100 or so newsletters showing a bull reading for five of the past six weeks.

These readings take us back to 2007, right before the financial crisis.

Regardless, staying above 1969.84 keeps the buying pressure on. Yesterday closed in the 1973-1980 range. The upper end could get retested today. Or maybe the gap at 1985.44 wants to get filled. Why not new highs?