WASHINGTON, July 5, 2012 – We promised a short column today and probably tomorrow due to what will probably be a predictable lack of meaningful action during this holiday-shortened trading week. With the 4th of July occurring smack dab in the middle of the week this week, we suspect that most perceptive family vacation planners wisely linked either the early or late part of the week, one weekend, plus the holiday, into an optimal getaway package. Or at least an economical staycation.
In any event, trading was light but positive early in the week. Today looked to open rather tepidly. But news has just hit the wire indicating that the Bank of England has increased its asset purchase program (Operation Brit Twist?), and the Chinese Central Bank is cutting interest rates. Stimulus, anyone?
The Bank of England in London. Jolly good move this morning.
It’s clear at this point that politicians around the world have little intention of getting serious about dealing with the underlying causes of Great Depression II and won’t until they hear the lumbering wheels of those old guillotine machines rolling back onto the public square as the proletariat seeks to eliminate political privilege and patronage. Permanently. Even that might not motivate the cretinous elite.
One way to deal with everything, of course, is to simply inflate economies out of the mess. Oh, sorry, that’s what everyone is doing now and it isn’t working either.
At any rate, this is today’s ongoing environment, so you have to take each trading day as it comes. Today’s looked dull until the aforementioned news. Now we might get a nice pop on low volume before things settle down.
Our advice: enjoy the rest of your vacation. Or, if you haven’t done so, take one already. As long as you keep your monetary powder dry, you’ll be in good shape, through the weekend anyway. Unless Iran continues its current game of goosing oil prices again. But that’s for another column.
UPDATE: Belay those optimistic opening comments. After even more good news–U.S. employment seem slightly improved–European Central Bank (ECB) boss Bruno Draghi issued negative news on the Eurozone economy that essentially noted, in the usual obfuscatory diplomatese, that things over there are not so good. We mean, who knew? Apparently, Wall Street futures are shocked, shocked, with Dow futures now off by 45 at 9 a.m. EDT. So it goes. Won’t take much to move the thin markets this holiday week. Same advice as before. Keep that mattress stuffed with Benjamins. Have a good one.
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