Come next Christmas, Santa Ben and his Fed elves will have another stocking to stuff. The Christmas miracle has come nine months early this year in the form of the iRally. Of course Congress remains perennially atop the “nice” list, as Santa Ben can always count on the boys and girls in Washington to leave a big fat regulatory gift along with a plate of cookies by the fireplace. But Team Collusion, Ben and his bankster pals of course, owe a great big thank you to the kids at Apple.

That’s right, it seems like Apple’s record numbers have been driving the market higher. So far this year, the S&P 500 technology sector is up 19 percent, but without Apple’s contribution it would be up just 14 percent, according to Moody’s. In addition, Apple’s shares are up 371 percent since the first iPhone was released in June 2007.

With every man, woman, child and perhaps dog (the iPet smart phone may be needed to ward off a potential 3rd quarter slump) owning some sort of Apple product, the iRally can be the only plausible explanation for the market moving higher on preposterously low volume.

It doesn’t matter that the global economic reindeer are sick. It’s hard to pull a sleigh when you have trillions of dollars of European debt on board. And while the inflation numbers don’t seem to faze Santa Ben up at the North Pole, they certainly have bothered our neighbor to the north, Canada. Their January’s inflation numbers included a 4.2% hike in food and a 6.5% rise in energy, year-over-year.

Here in the U.S., the Producer Price Index (PPI) had its largest rise in six months in January, climbing 0.4%. And while Ben’s brand of Economists like to exclude “volatile” food and energy prices from how the inflation rate is calculated to create a “better” picture, most American’s need to put gas in their sleigh. And yes, gas prices are creeping higher and higher in to dangerous territory.

Plus, even though there’s a few more McJobs or shall we now say iJobs, hourly earnings for employed Americans fell one percent over the past 12 months to January 2012. Inflation up, earnings down….Doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.

But we’ve got the global central planners who are more than happy to print money so we can all buy more Apple products. Who says it can’t be Christmas all year round?

Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.”

Behold the age of infinite moral hazard! On April 2nd, 2009 CONgress forced FASB to suspend rule 157 in favor of deceitful accounting for the TBTF banksters.

larrylevin@tradingadvantage.com
Trading Advantage
(888) 755-3846

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Trading Signals from the Electronic (ES) mini-SP 500

FT sell @ 2:21pm at 1398.00 = +0.50 (1 lot)

Algorithm positions (3)

“Reading the Tape” positions (3) …combined Secret’s, Algo, & “Reading the Tape” total… +2.75

Click Here to See Yesterday's Detailed Results

Value Areas:

ES 1399.50 / 1397.00
POC... 1398.50
YM 13203 / 13175
NQ 2712.75 / 2706.75

Notes from the Pit

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