MARKET COMMENT
Dave Fry’s ETF Digest, May 5, 2009
President: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
[Long pause]
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President: In the garden.
Chance the Gardener : Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President: Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President: Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we’re upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President: Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I’ve heard in a very, very long time.
[Benjamin Rand applauds]
President: I admire your good, solid sense. That’s precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.
Well, some things are just too good to pass up. I saw the picture of the smiling chairman and was instantly reminded of Peter Sellers in that great movie. If you never saw it, please do so, it’s a hoot!
But to give the chairman his due when you drop interest rates to zero, pump up the money supply, conduct nonstop bailouts and endorse stimulus packages…well, you’ve thrown a lot of you know what at markets. It’s bound to have an impact eventually even if inflation is the result.
There are plenty of institutional investors who don’t like sitting on zero interest rates and are looking for any excuse to make some dough. This is what’s going on. Further, market psychology is as important as policy action. Hence, we have the “happy talk”.
Volume was again on the light side today while breadth was neutral. What’s happening with volume reporting on the NASDAQ? I’ve never seen so many screwy reports. Below is the Wall Street Journal’s summary. After is from Clear Station. As they say in Hawaii, everything is “kapakahi” or screwed-up.
I did get a lot of requests and to my Danish friends there aren’t any US trading Norway or Finland ETFs yet, but give them time, they’ll have them out sooner or later. Again, I’ll try to cover what interests’ readers.
Now, about that Peter Sellers/Bernanke thing, I offer no apologies. I just couldn’t resist. It’s no coincidence like we’ve been posting that Fed officials are speaking every day this week. They wanna pump you up a la Hanz & Franz. Plus they’re taking some bows for their stewardship of conditions. Are you applauding? Do we really want to create another bubble? It seems the easy way out.
Volume remains light and markets are overbought. There’s some serious economic news coming like employment data. But bulls are hardened to bad news and will spin things to suit their agenda.
Let’s see what happens.
Disclaimer: Among other issues the ETF Digest maintains positions in: SPY, MDY, IWM, VTI, RSP, QQQQ, XLI, XLB, XLY, IYR, IEF, TLT, TBT, DBV, DBC, USL, XLE, DBA, MOO, DBB, XME, EFA, EEM, IEV, ILF, EWW, EWZ, EWC, EWJ and FXI.
The charts and comments are only the author’s view of market activity and aren’t recommendations to buy or sell any security. Market sectors and related ETFs are selected based on his opinion as to their importance in providing the viewer a comprehensive summary of market conditions for the featured period. Chart annotations aren’t predictive of any future market action rather they only demonstrate the author’s opinion as to a range of possibilities going forward. More detailed information, including actionable alerts, are available to subscribers at www.etfdigest.com.
