Will We Hold It Wednesday – Strong Bounce Edition

Go kitty cat, go!  

On the right is the S&P chart and you can see the huge volume levels as we sold off with 553M shares traded on the S&P ETF (SPY) in two down days as the S&P fell from 2,113 on Thursday to 1,991 on Monday (122 points, 5.7%).  Yesterday, we popped back to 2,036, which is 45 points off the low but the volume on SPY was only 158M.

Let's say, for example, that you are re-building a 122-point wall that was knocked down and there were 550 bricks in the wall and you begin to re-build the wall and, as you are 45-points back up (37%), you realize you only used 158 bricks (29%).  Is that wall going to be weaker or stronger than the one that got knocked down?  Would you trust your family to be safe behind that wall?  Would you trust your investments to be safe?  

Yes, an 8% difference doesn't seem like a big deal but it's actually 158 out of 203 (37% of 550) that should have been used so we're 45 bricks short, so far, and that's 22.4% short.  So, going back to the market, we are getting to the same overbought levels but now with 22.4% less cash supporting the run than we had before.  That's really not good!  

The market was already a house of cards (as evidenced by our rapid collapse over the UK's vote to leave the EU within the next 2 years – ridiculous!) and now we've removed 22% of the cards yet there are still strong winds blowing in from China, Japan, Brazil, Venezuela (still rioting) and don't even get me started on how we're up again today, rallying over the bodies of 36 dead and 147 injured at the Istanbul Airport.  Is terrorism now a rally signal?  

Turkey is on it's way into the EU as the UK is on the way out but, for now, we can ignore this terror attack, just like we ignored 35 dead and injured on Jan 12th, 49 on the 13th, 7 on the 18th, 4 on the 27th, 99 in February, 329 in March, 160 in April, 67 in May and 384 so far this month makes 1,067 killed and injured so far this year or what Syria calls "a slow weekend."  

I know we are mostly isolated from this sort of thing but it is happening on our planet!  Maybe you don't want to think twice about it but at least think once before you rush back in to pay all-time high priced for stocks in a time of rising tension.  As noted in the link, total terrorist attacks are rising rapidly at 97, 66, 108, 150, 197 and 189 (so far) incidents from January to June of this year and that's not even counting the US's 208 mass shootings since the GOP refuses to consider domestic gun-owners who have killed or injured 1,071 people this year "terrorists".  Look at that – by exercising our constitutional right to bear arms – we're ahead of Turkey this year!  

Keep it up America, we're just a few ammo clips away from moving up to take on Syria in the finals for the title of the most dangerous country on Earth!  As you can see from the chart above, those pesky gun laws keep some of our most populated states on the sidelines though those schoolchildren in Connecticut certainly did their part to help out a few years ago.  

Speaking of children, our $1.1Bn allocation to fight Zika was kiled in the Senate as the GOP stuffed in provisions to deny funding to Planned Parenthood in the Zika funding bill, which is interesting because there are already 800 cases in the continental US and the Zika virus has a horrific effect on unborn children so maybe not the best time to crack down on abortions?  Zika has already cost Latin America $3.5Bn in 2016 and the US pays 3 times more for health care and has double the population so you do the economic math if the GOP allows this virus to run unchecked.

The Center for American Progress estimates that 2 million women in the U.S. will get pregnant this summer and fall, with nearly half of them living in areas potentially at risk of Zika. It's important to note that the public policy group's analysis isn't based on the actual prevalence of Zika around the country, while even if the virus spreads only a fraction of women are likely to be infected.

Still, if even just one in 10 gets Zika, the CDC estimates that up to 13 percent of their unborn offspring could develop microcephaly. If just 13,000 babies are born in the U.S. with this disability or to women who migrated here for better medical treatment, the cost of keeping them alive and providing for their lifetime care could range from $13 billion to as much as $130 billion.

YOU need to write to your Congressman and Senator if you want them to stop acting like idiots in the 10 days we have left before Congress goes on Summer Vacation (not to the Southeast, I bet!).  The fact that this bill didn't pass the day Obama proposed it last month is shocking enough but not passing ANY funding to fight this disease is friggin' INSANE and you elected these idiots – so you have to call them – PLEASE!