MarketRant: USRant: If Stumps Was At 3pm...

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What do you want to say? Yet another decline, after an explosive rally that took the indices up like a skyrocket. A data heavy day, but neither the launch off the lows nor the lurch down into the close was caused by economic news... it is just a market that has a load of participants who deperately want the thing to reverse up, because they have got literally billions of dollars riding on it.

The Euro got absolutely caned on news that some professional parasite who wrks for the ECB, said that the ECB had to think harder about cutting rates. Well, that's the gist of what he said; in short, there is a co-ordinated effort by central wankers to prevent a slide of the US Dollar through both EURUSD 1.5000 and USDX 75.

Economic News

A big day in EcoData terms:

The Consumer Price Index rose 4.1% year on year, making CPI based inflation the fastest in 17 years. Blame oil if you're a central banking enthusiast - me, I prefer to blame money-printing. For the month the CPI was up 0.3% (consensus was for 0.2%). For non-eating, non-driving consumers who don't buy anything that is ever transported, year on year prices only rose 2.5% or so - so if you went without food and transport, your cost of living hardly rose... problem is you would be dead by now. For those who went without food or energy just for the month, they saved nothing compared to those who ate and drove and heated their houses... 'core' CPI rose 0.2%, in line with expectations.
Foreign Demand for Long-Term U.S. Securities fell 10% - to $90.9billion from $101.5billion the prior month;
Industrial Production came in unchanged - which as better than the consensus guess of -0.2%. The Capacity Utilisation Rate was tipped to drop to 81.2%, but registered a level of 81.4%.
Crude oil inventories rose by 4.3millon barrels for the week - this is another number for which I could not find a consensus estimate.
Beige Book... things were slow in the third quarter. Well, colour me impressed.

In the housing sector, the news also sucks:

The UK housing market had its worst month since 1992, however in the US today MBA Purchase Applications registered a rise of 11% to 461.2; the Refinance component of the MBA index rose 43% (although the prior week was influenced by the New Years Day holiday). Refinance mortgages now make up 63% of all mortgage applications (up from 58%), and adjustable rate mortgages are still roughly 10% of all mortgages.
the Housing Market Index prepared by the National Association of Homebuilders came in at 19, in line with consensus and unchanged from the prior month. The index is a composite of diffusion indices - 50 means that the indices indicated a housing expansion on average. It's meaningless, in other words.

Fed Open Market Operations

None. There, that was easy.

Headline Indices

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 34.95 points (0.28%) to 12466.16 points. The index low was 12392.27 set jsut before 11 a.m., whereupon a solid rally ensued, taking the indices up the equivalent of 220 Dow points. The high for the day was 12613.05, set with just over an hour to play. So notice t hat: in the last fifty minutes the Dow fell 150 points.

The S&P 500 Index dipped 7.75 points (0.56%) to 1373.20 points. The index high for the day was 1391.98, while the low was 1367.49. The worst-performed index components were -

AMBAC Financial - absolutely crushed, whalloped for 8.17 (38.65%) to $12.97 on volume of 17.8 milion shares;
MBIA inc> lost 2.65 (16.51%)to $13.40 on volume of 16,8 million shares;
Intel shed 2.81 (12.38%) to $19.88 on volume of 307.9 million shares;
NVIDIA Corpdropped 3.02 (11.30%) to $23.71 on volume of 36.2 million shares;
Intercontinentalfell 14.85 (9.09%)to $148.47 on volume of 4.1 million shares;

The Nasdaq Composite shed 23 points (0.95%) to 2394.59 points - again, Intel was a big contributor due to its huge market capitalisation. The index high for the day was 2429.58, while the low was 2361.22, with the timings pretty much in line with the Dow.

The Nasdaq-100 fell 21.8 points (1.15%) to 1872.29 points. The index high for the day was 1907.30, while the low was 1848.58.>

The CBOE Volatilty Index (VIX) advanced +0.85 points (3.64%) to 24.19 points, and the CBOE Nasdaq Volatility Index (VXN) rose +1.25 points (4.55%) to 28.73 points. The index high for the day was 28.77, while the low was 27.09.

NYSE Total Volume totalled 5.36billion units. NYSE advancing issues shared the honours (more or less) with decliners - 1646 stocks advanced, while 1714 declined. Decliners got the judge's decision in numerical terms, and pressed a further advantage in aggregate volume terms: the decliners had the edge by 2.78 billion untis to 2.39 for the advancers. Just 36 NYSE stocks made new 52-week highs, and 387 hit new 1-year lows.

Nasdaq Total Volume totalled 3.4billion units. On the Nasdaq the advancers had a the numerical edge - 1664 to 1372 - but a bigger percentage shortfall on the volume side (1.46 bilion units in advancers, versus 1.88 billion in decliners). 54 Nasdaq tickers made new 1-year highs, while new 52-week lows numbered 350 on the Nasdaq.

Major Market Statistics
Index	Close	Gain(Loss)	%
DOW JONES INDUSTR	12466.16	34.95	0.28%
S&P 500 INDEX,RTH	1373.20	7.75	0.56%
NASDAQ COMPOSITE	2394.59	23	0.95%
NASDAQ-100 (DRM)	1872.29	21.8	1.15%
CBOE VOLATILITY I	24.19	0.85	3.64%
CBOE NASDAQ VOLAT	28.73	1.25	4.55%
NYSE Total Volume	5.36bn	-	-
Nasdaq Total Volume	3.4bn	-	-

Other Indices of Interest...

The Banks Index added 2.04 (2.47%) to 82.73 points. Index volume totalled 517.7 million shares. Of the 24 index components, 21 advanced, with volume in advancers totalling 310.1 million units. Of the remaining 3 stocks in the index, every other stock fell, with total volume traded of 207.7 million shares.