Do These Headlines Today Look Like Prosperity To You?

In a robust economy with strong demand, this would never be the case::

Factory Orders: Getting Worse!

Today's Headlines: UGLY!

"Welcome To The Contraction": Q1 GDP Drops By 0.7%, Corporate Profits Crash

 U.S. Households Under Pressure: Stagnant Incomes, Rising Basic Expenses

Is Bad News, Bad Again? Europe And US Stocks Slump

GDP Report Confirms Global Trade Is Crashing, And Why That Is Good News For Some
Consumer Sentiment Slumps To 6-Month Lows, Current Conditions Tumble
Chicago PMI Bounce Is Dead, Crashes Back Near 6 Year Lows

How Japan's Unemployment Rate Dropped Even As 280,000 People Lost Their Jobs

Kiss Your Pension Fund Good-Bye

Martin Armstrong explains that a Supreme Court decision opens the door for the government to confiscate all private pension funds.

"Monday’s unanimous ruling sends a warning to employers that they now must improve their plans, as it is now an obligation to project employees. This comes just in time for the next step is government to seize private funds and prosecute employers who poorly chose a fund manager. This fits perfectly, and is just in time for the Obama Administration’s next assault as they prepare a landmark change of its own by issuing rules requiring financial advisers to put the interest of customers ahead of their own. This creates a very grey area wide enough to justify public seizure of pension funds under management."

Read the rest here. 

Stocks Sell Off In Heavy Volume

The VIX spiked today, with stocks selling off in heavy volume. The Dow closed down 190 points. A word to the wise...

Economic Headlines = Data Down, Stocks UP!

Go figure:

4 Macro Data Misses, Stocks Surge Higher to Fresh Record Highs

"What a world, what a world!" This morning, the macro data has missed expectations -- four for four -- and yet stocks are rising sharply, to new all-time record highs! Wall St bankers have never been so dismissive of the bad economic news!

BofA Admits That GDP Data is Doctored

 ...er, I mean "seasonally adjusted"! And they admit that they're in collusion with the San Francisco Fed to do it! Where are the news media reports about this? Oh, I forgot! They are, after all, the Propaganda Press!

Bank of America admits that the GDP data is doctored. We're being propagandized by our government, our central bankers, and the bank economists.
"Currently, 1Q GDP is likely to come in around -1.2%, so fixing the data gets us back above zero." Fixing indeed. Do you see that? They admit that they "fix" the data to "get us back above zero"!

This morning, they all but admitted that they are in collusion with the San Francisco Fed to fabricate the economic data to make it appear positive, even when it isn't:

"Glenn Rudebusch and colleagues at the San Francisco Fed argue that residual seasonality could exist because not all the components of GDP are adjusted and the adding-up process could create further seasonality issues. They note that the risk of problems is high in 1Q, because the overall economy has a major “seasonal recession” in 1Q and, hence, big adjustments are required to normalize the data. "

They use fancy and arcane terms like "seasonal issues" and "normalize the data" to obscure the reality that in Q1 2015, the US economy was negative and went into recession. So they "seasonalize" the data to make it positive, even when it was NEGATIVE!

So the banks, the central planners, and the government are all now in collusion to mislead the American people. That's propaganda. Agitprop! And we thought that only the Soviet Union did that!

Welcome to Amerika, comrades!

More notes:

It's not good enough now that starting in August 2013, they changed the way the calculate GDP, adding in "intangibles" to artificially boost GDP. Now, they're doing "seasonal adjustments" -- repeatedly -- to make it appear higher than it really is!

"... the US itself revised its own historical GDP higher by about $500 billion when it retroactively added the benefits of intangibles, trademarks, and changed the way pensions were capitalized, economists have been stumped how to rejigger numbers which refuse to comply with central-planning's "best "intentions of boosting not only the S&P to record highs, but also the economy which somehow crashes every time there is snow in the winter." Zero Hedge this morning!

Note how they obscure the language by using arcane verbiage to mislead:
"The bottom line: adjustment problems are quite real and probably bias down 1Q GDP growth by at least 1.5%, and bias up other quarters by about 0.5%."
Do you see that? They admit that 1st Quarter GDP was DOWN 1.5%, but they fabricated an "adjustment" to artificially boost it to a positive number, partly by claiming that it was just bad weather! As if winter shouldn't appear in winter! 

Housing Starts Surge In Sparse "Good News" For 2015

This morning, housing starts data showed a surprisingly good surge in "starts":

At the same time, however, housing SALES have been disappointing, so it's likely that this increase in construction is a more a manifestation of builder sentiment, than consumer sentiment. It may lead to oversupply! Headlines related to housing sales were weak just in recent days, so this may end up being counterproductive!

Nevertheless, this supposed good news brought this reaction from Wall St, where everything seems twisted to be the opposite of what one would expect in recent years:

Clearly, this "good news" is seen as bad news on Wall St!

Update: This perspective this morning from Zero Hedge:
"As can be seen on the chart below, the last time single-family housing starts in the Northeast soared as much as they did in was in June 2008, just before the financial system nearly collapsed."
Here is the accompanying chart:

US Macro Data Continues to Degrade...

...even as stocks reach new record highs!

Weak Jobs Report Sends Stock Soaring

Once again, we see the broken market manifest in these headlines that sent stocks soaring 250+ points:

US Economy Not Rebounding

The economic data is not improving, as was expected. The old story of "weather" isn't true, and the data is not rebounding in the 2nd quarter, as was expected!

Twisted Markets!

This headline says it all:

Stocks Surge to Just 4 Ticks From New Record

Despite terrible economic data this morning, stock futures surged, reaching 2109 a few minutes ago. That's just 4 tiny ticks from a new all-time record high!

Headlines for 4-23-2015: Manufacturing, Home Sales Miss, Crude Surges $2

Now that's just great for the economy! (Sarcasm) Claims for unemployment rose, housing sales are the worst in two years, manufacturing disappointed by the most on record, and the price of crude oil (ie., gasoline) is UP by $2 today! But stocks barely blinked! As I post this, stocks are flat, but trending HIGHER! There simply is no longer any perception of risk or bad news! This is a recipe for disaster!

Claims for unemployment -- not improving!

Manufacturing - worst miss on record!

Home sales -- another bubble?

Crude oil surges $2 higher!

Stocks went positive after I posted this!

Credit Markets Flashing Red

Alexander Giryavets at Dynamika Capital for pointing us to something which is far more troubling than even the Atlanta Fed's collapse in Q1 GDP tracking: namely the latest Credit Managers Index for the month of March which "deteriorated significantly over the last two months and current readings stand at the recessionary levels not seen since 2008." 

"We now know that the readings of last month were not a fluke or some temporary aberration that could be marked off as something related to the weather. There is quite obviously some serious financial stress manifesting in the data and this does not bode well for the growth of the economy going forward. These readings are as low as they have been since the recession started and to see everything start to get back on track would take a substantial reversal at this stage. The data from the CMI is not the only place where this distress is showing up, but thus far, it may be the most profound."  Alexander Giryavets, Dynamika Capital

Economic Worries Prevail As Treasuries Continue to Rise

Today's big mover, US Treasuries, is a sign that investors are worried today!

Economic Headlines for April 14, 2015

The Dollar was hit hard this morning by the retail sales slump.

 Treasuries are up sharply. Investors buy treasuries when they're worried. They have been rising steadily since March 9th.

Today's economic headlines: Slumping retail sales leads today. The sharp changes in the two charts above both occurred at 6:30 am Mountain Time, at the hour that the data was released regarding retail sales.

CITI Predicts Weaker Oil Price Even As Prices Continue Recent Trend Higher

from CITI:

Already at record levels, US storage capacity may be tested in 2Q as production shows no signs of slowing yet. Prices should bottom if capacity limits are reached, then recover but in previous episodes such as shale gas when the market has expected the US to hit a wall, it hasn’t. Any price recovery will likely be short lived as higher prices should re-start shale drilling, once again increasing supply and sending prices back down…

US crude oil mid-continent inventories are expected to draw down mildly from May to August, and the next problem could well arise come fall when refinery maintenance begins with seasonally highest level stocks…

And by autumn, the US Gulf Coast could also see storage constraints when refiners go into what could be deeper and longer maintenance given the shallow maintenance this winter and spring.

 But crude prices have been trending modestly higher!

At the same time, hedge funds have been piling in to buy crude oil lately.

Bubble Quote

“A group of lemmings looks like a pack of individualists compared with Wall Street when it gets a concept in its teeth.”- Warren Buffett