It looks like they pushed this week one day too far.
Oddly enough, investors seem shocked this morning that the EU GDP was a 10% miss, falling 2.5% for the quarter and 4.6% for the year, the worst ever recorded. They were led down by Germany’s 3.8% quarterly decline vs. forecasts of a 3.2% drop. We knew this was coming on Wednesday, when I mentioned right in the morning post the the EU March Industrial Production figures indicated a certain miss in the GDP report and, of course, that’s how our membersplayed the markets into the close yesterday. What is really baffling is how is it that other people can’t figure this stuff out until they see the actual data? Who are these economic “experts” they keep polling, who have yet to be right about anything this year?
Anyway, let’s keep our head in the game. CNBC has a parade of oil bulls on this morning trying to counter the facts but clearly this is a major disappointment forthe commodity pushers, who were counting on jacking us back over $60a barrel for the holiday weekend next week, the traditional start to “summer driving season.” Well, bad news kids, summer may be canceled as it’s kind of hard to sell a turn-around story for Q2 when Europe’s Q1 was 78% worsethan Q4 (-1.4%). That isNOT what they call getting worse moreslowly. I may not be one of the “expert” economists polledby the WSJ but I do know some basic physics and it’s kind ofhard to point to a 78% quarter over quarter accelerationto the downside as a sign of a summer turnaround.
Note the graph on the left doesn’t include this quarter so you have to imagine another red line that breaks below the bottom of the chart and stops 1 more segment below the -2.0 line – THAT’S today’s number. Don’t worry though, Cramer tells us that yesterday’s anemic performance (in which we failed to take back our levels and sold off into the close off a very weak bounce) means the bull rally is back! Meanwhile, also on CNBC – Marc Faber of the “Gloom, Boom and Doom Report” warned us this morning that Capitalism itself may be collapsing. Faber saysa sustainable recovery will occur only when the corporate system will be cleaned of losses and capitalism risks collapsing if this does not happen. “The central banks will continue to print money at full…
