The Bad News Is Good Con Remains

Naturally you can assume that portfolio managers are working hard to stay invested since that’s their duty. The herd can invent all manner of spin to keep the con going that bad news remains great since the Fed “can’t” or “won’t” raise interest rates. This is all bulls focus on.

Sure they can cherry-pick news they like and ignore fundamental weakness. Does it rankle others like yours truly! You bet!

My duty is to report what I see but then follow the trends the tape dictates. It’s a difficult act as you deal with both issues.

I’ve no idea who’s buying this bad news day, perhaps sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and the like, but it doesn’t pay to know since the tape is the tape period.

Financials and banks led Thursday’s rally for example as CitiBank (C) beat lowered estimates. This translated to bulls who ramped the entire sector, even those that didn’t do well (JPM, GS and etc.)

And, as to bad news? Well, there’s always economic data to consider led by gains in core inflation (0.2%) led primarily to rising rents. (If you live around here, you’ll know what I mean.) Meanwhile the nasty economic data persists as the Empire State Mfg Survey slumped to –11.36 and the Philly Fed Business Survey also fell to -4.25.

Bottom line, where’s Spock when you need him.

The top ETF daily market movers by percentage change in volume whether rising or falling is available daily.

Volume was healthy and breadth per the WSJ was positive.

Once again, if the trend is durable (now rising short-term) supporting news must follow. We’ll have to wait and see.

Another maxim advises, if markets rise on bad news, that’s bullish.

Just sayin’ and apologies for the short post.

Let’s see what happens.