STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 2 February 2012

[Demeter]

6. "Manufacturing Growth" Continues By Chuck Butler QUOTES ADDED--DEMETER

http://dailyreckoning.com/manufacturing-growth-continues/

After watching time and time again, the overseas markets take the dollar to the woodshed, and then when the New York traders come in, the price action all gets reversed. I thought to myself, “Self, doesn’t it look like New York traders have orders from the top of the house to make sure the dollar doesn’t fall off a cliff? Why, yes, self, it does look like that!” Now let’s get back to reality…

Here’s an illustration that shows us just how dumb the markets are these days… Yes, I know they’re always right… but in all my days as a currency analyst, trader and writer, what happened yesterday would have never happened before 2008…

First of all — for one of the few times recently — consumer confidence surprised the experts who thought it would rise by a large margin, by falling by a large margin! I don’t want these things to happen… I just want what’s the correct reaction to happen… And given what the Fed Heads had to say, real unemployment at 23% and home prices still falling, consumer confidence should fall… and, finally, it did! But what happened afterward is just not right!

Pre-2008, a weak consumer confidence report would have sent the dollar to the woodshed, and currencies and metals onto the rally tracks… But not any longer, it seems… That bad stuff in the U.S. (except quantitative easing) sends the markets to dollars… stranger than fiction… but it is what it is, and we have to deal with it!

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