One of the great things about never sleeping is that time does seem to whiz by, mainly because one has no idea what day of the week it is by mid-week. The only thing I know is that the market is about to open again shortly, and it might be "all hands to battlestations" time.
Yesterday was one of the most turbulent post-FOMC trading periods that I've seen in a while, and so if you are needing the big picture analysis, we went over it in detail in the December 3 issue.
I just saw the following headline:
Nikkei Average Breaks Below 10,000
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei average broke below 10,000 on Wednesday in a two percent fall to its lowest close in over two weeks, with chip-related issues hit by disappointing earnings in the industry and a robust yen hurting exporters.
Of course, this is most ironic seeing that the Dow was supposed to blast up through 10,000 only yesterday, a testament to the diabolical nature of the market.
Remember back in January 1990 when the Nikkei was at 38,900 and American business was officially pronounced dead in favor of keiretsu financial engineering? Remember we were all supposed to learn to speak Japanese and learn how to bow -- really, really low?
One bubble, one crash, and one decade later, who would have thought that financial engineering would morph into market cap based on the number of eyeballs glued to a website in the form of CMGI, which by the way, released earnings on Monday. Two bubbles and two crashes in two countries later, the term "corporate governance" is back in vogue and financial statements prepared according to U.S. GAAP are back in fashion, or is it?
Or maybe the most painful question of all is why all this stuff is stored in my brain and won't go away! Perhaps it will come in handy one day on a special episode of Jeopardy, speaking of which, I guess each day in the market is like being on a game show, isn't it?
Looking ahead to the rest of the week, I think today's 5-year Treasury Note auction and tomorrow's 10-year Treasury Note auction results will be closely scrutinized. We will see if the market itself is going to start hiking rates. Please refer to the Intermarket Roundup and the Treasury Futures analysis from December 1, if you need to look at the big picture.
03.12.10 04:12 #