The collision of global markets and social mood

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Wednesday -- Solstice, Banking & Madness

S&P E-mini Futures:
Drifting.

News:
Marketwatch.com was particularly *target rich* this Solstice morning:

" . . . this ‘Trump trade’ is just getting started"

"Why a 21-year-old forecast for Dow 116,200 still makes sense"

"How you can bottom-feed for stocks left behind in the Trump rally"

"Dow poised to flirt again with ‘magical’ 20,000 level"

And finally this little whopper:

"Americans are now in more debt than they were before the financial crisis"

The 5:44am ET Winter solstice seems to have had greater effect on Spanish and Italian banks, where three of the largest Spanish banks imploded on news they would have to compensate mortgage holders for billions, and Italy's Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena fell on fears it would not be able to raise the total amount of funds to meet its liquidity requirements, even as mother Italy readies a 20 billion euro bailout (for an estimated 360 billion euro problem).

The madness is just getting started.

Today, this shortest day (and most mystical) of the year, the sun resumes its ascent.

Long live the sun.

Let us light bonfires and give thanks.

FX:
CHF and JPY on the march higher as Europe's banks stumble.

Treasuries:
Another morning of shifty-looking price action.

Energy:
WTI crude up on dwindling supply but volume still nowhere. NG reversed when and where it needed to, breaking a choppy down trend.

Metals:
Gold slightly higher but still hovering perilously above its 78.6% level at around 1115. Silver recently reversed green, and copper is too. Platinum and palladium red.

S&P Outlook:
Got the 2272 test yesterday as pre-holiday volume continued to exit. Would still love a test of lower levels, specifically the 2242-2245 area.

Clearing the 2272 could see the S&P mirror the Dow Jones Industrials drive higher, the Dow still reaching for 20,000.

Doubtful 20,000 Dow will mean a buy signal for S&P other than the previously cited 2303-2373 zone. There's no magic to the 20,000, only excess psychology.

The same runaway social mood that thinks 116,200 still makes sense.

It's called herding.

Scottish journalist Charles Mackay called it Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds . . . back in 1841.

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