I should just link the whole paper because it is full of it every day. This is a front-page special.
"Stock market at pre-crisis levels, but many still on sidelines" by Beth Healy | Globe Staff, February 07, 2013
Stock markets have surged to near five-year highs, thanks to a strong 2012 for investors followed by a rousing January. So where’s the party?
The Dow Jones industrial average is flirting with 14,000, having bounced back from the darkest days of the financial crisis. US stocks have doubled in value since March 2009, meaning many Americans have at least recovered their losses from that period. But for a bull market of this scale, there’s a distinct lack of euphoria out there....
Yeah, there's a bull something out there, I can smell it.
More and more you realize the Dow Jones is simply a manipulation of favored stocks and not at all an accurate reflection of the real economy. It is rich guys arbitrarily speculating on things with Wall Street firms generating computer trades to bolster stock prices and their bottom lines.
Many people missed the rally of 2012, or did not participate in it fully, because they remained so jarred by the market’s massive drops four years ago that they became more conservative in their investments. Some reduced their stock holdings, and others cashed out of the stock market entirely.
Or they don't have any money left (meaning most of us).
Even as the market and the economy started to rebound strongly last year, investors kept pulling billions of dollars out of stock funds and pouring them into bond funds, according to the Investment Company Institute, a Washington trade group that tracks mutual fund flows. The tide did not turn until recent weeks, when investors finally seemed to realize the market was stretching toward a new high.
And yet I've been reading articles all year long about the uneven and tepid recovery -- even as the holiday quarter from last year recorded a contraction! -- but here, today, on February 7th I am told the recovery is rebounding strongly. Yeah, it is -- for a small sliver at the top that are doing great.
Related: Boston Globe Giving You the Business
Boston Globe Business Pages Are Nothing But Bulls***!
And they are still telling the same lies (blog editor sadly frowns) because that is the conventional corporate narrative.
“It’s been a stealth bull market,’’ said Raj Sharma, a private wealth adviser for Merrill Lynch in Boston. It’s the first one he can recall that largely snuck up on investors....
Yeah, but you can STILL SMELL IT!!
It was easy to miss the rising stock market, often lost in a host of global economic worries. Headlines and political banter about the fiscal cliff, high unemployment, and the European debt crisis have often overshadowed the fact that companies have quietly been amassing big profits, and their stocks have been soaring....
Just something I thought you should know in this age of epic inequality and austerity, 'murkn!
The Federal Reserve has pledged to help get the jobless rate down, mainly by buying up securities. That strategy has helped push up the prices of some assets, including stocks....
Yup, Fed hasn't done a damn thing about unemployment, but the stock market has zoomed. To anyone paying attention the last five years that is not a surprise at all.
Yet the so-called wealth effect that historically occurs when markets rise vigorously seems muted. The housing market is slowly improving, and car sales are picking up, but consumers are cautious. While a dollar increase in stock wealth typically translates into 3 or 4 cents of consumer spending, according to Zandi, the economist, it is producing only about a penny of spending.
Because WE the VAST MAJORITY of the PEOPLE have NO MORE MONEY!
Even wealthy Americans are not yet spending at pre-crisis levels, Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, said: “I don’t think high-net- worth households are popping champagne corks or spending with gusto.”
After a 22 percent gain in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index over the past 13 months, even some professional investors fear at least a temporary pullback.
S&P? Who the hell listens to them anymore? Didn't they put out AAA rating for mortgage-backed pieces of hit? Aren't they being sued by the US and state of Massachusetts?
State Street Corp., the big Boston investment and financial services firm, recently announced 630 layoffs and predicted the market would rise only 5 percent all year.
Also see: State Street to lay off 630
They made how many millions last quarter?
“People are making money, but it’s amazing that there’s still so much negative sentiment around,’’ said Merrill’s Sharma....
Oh, I clearly recognize the symptoms of GREED!!!!
--more--"
I suppose you can look at the rest of the section, readers; the only story I noted on my pad was the LIBOR settlement -- another chump-change, tap-on-the-wrist fine for a transgression that cost citizens of the world trillions and lined bankers' pockets with profits.
Related: The LIBOR Looting Scheme
The Latest on LIBOR
The LIBOR is Life
Congress Grilled Geithner About LIBOR
