WASHINGTON, June 13, 2012 – This is a late and very short afternoon edition of Morning Market Maven. The Maven has been unavoidably on the road since about 6 a.m. EDT this morning and has only just returned to find what he pretty much expected. Having finished its brief manic phase yesterday, Mr. Market is back to his depressive phase as of 3 p.m., off roughly 70 Dow points as we write this.
Yeah, you guessed it, the ongoing Euro-freakout has returned to the fore, with Spanish and Italian sovereign interest rates getting a kick upward today indicating that currency fears have yet to be put to rest. Appropriately, we’ve headed our brief report today with a graphic depicting a pair of Spanish dancers tripping the light fandango, just for the sheer heck of it. Maybe we’ll put up a photo of Pope Benedict tomorrow to celebrate the Italian economy. No, wait. The Pope heads his own state. Never mind. Maybe a photo of the Vatican’s bankers would be more in keeping with this week’s motif.
For the rest of the week we have the latest jobless figures to deal with and then a weekend of worry as the Greeks get to have at that ballot box once again. We’re confident they’ll produce a result as messy as the last one, enabling everyone to kick the can down the road once again. Which could make for a very bad market next week if the Fed doesn’t announce another round of quantitative easing (QE) very soon. Which it may. Or may not.
And of course on Friday, we have quadruple witching/expiration. This could make for some very volatile trading in, we suspect, the downward direction as we’re hard pressed to think why anybody would want to be very long your average stock going into a Greek-to-me style weekend.
So, having already had a long day and having concluded one can’t make much money trading today, the Maven is going to head for the fridge where he will liberate a cold Great Lakes Brewing Company Dortmunder Gold Lager—or two—and call it a short trading day. Sometimes prudence is indeed the better part of valor. And celebrating our prudence with a libation from our hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, just seems so right today.
See you tomorrow morning with another Wall Street sequel to “Groundhog Day.”
Disclaimer: The author of this column maintains several active trading and investment portfolios and owns residential and investment real estate.
Illustrations, charts, commentary, and analysis are only the author’s view of current or historical market activity and don’t constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any security or contract. Views, indications, and analysis aren’t necessarily predictive of any future market or government action. Rather they indicate the author’s opinion as to a range of possibilities that may occur going forward.
References to other reporters, analysts, pundits, or commentators are illustrative only and do not necessarily represent an endorsement of such individuals’ points of view. If specific investment vehicles are mentioned in any article under this column heading, the author will always fully disclose any active or contemplated investments in said vehicles.
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