Okay, the market likes the accommodating stance the central banks around the world have taken, right?
- Draghi said an economic recovery should begin later this year as an absence of inflation risks allows the ECB to maintain record-low interest rates.
To be more specific, he actually said this …
- “Later in 2013, economic activity should gradually recover, supported by our accommodative policy stance,” Draghi said at a press conference in Frankfurt after policy makers kept the benchmark rate at 0.75 percent. Inflation risks are contained, allowing the ECB’s policy “to remain accommodative,” and economic weakness will prevail only “in the early part” of this year, he said.
Absent any other dramatic news, then what gives with the market today? Is the movement just about technicals, fear of the US political circus, or is it simply that the market understands it needs a breather? My guess it is a little of all three, but mostly the market understands that it cannot keep going up without solid support underneath. The market needs a base to march higher and it seems to want to build that base right around the 1500 line on the S&P 500 and the 13,850-13,900 zone of the DIJA …
I almost did not open with the above this morning. When I was reading, I came across an article that has little to do with market, other than a vague connection between the computer/software world and what the means to the market. Now, bear with me as where I go from here has little to do with making your money work …
Over the years, more than a few futuristic movies portray the “bad guy” as one giant technology conglomerate ruling the world through its control of the global communications network. The company has its own security force and its enemies are the hackers who are fighting for freedom from the tyranny of the company. Ironically, the evil company starts off by helping the government security forces track down hackers who are beating the system for gobs of illegal money. That is all fantasy, right? Okay, well check this out …
Software makers Microsoft Corp and Symantec Corp said they disrupted a global cybercrime operation [Bamital] by shutting down servers that controlled hundreds of thousands of PCs without the knowledge of their users. Microsoft and Symantec estimate there are between 300,000 and 1 million PCs currently infected with malicious software that enslaved them into the botnet.
Technicians working on behalf of both companies raided data centers in Weehawken, New Jersey, and Manassas, Virginia, on Wednesday, accompanied by U.S. federal marshals, according to Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit.
Bamital’s organizers also had the ability to take control of infected PCs, installing other types of computer viruses that could engage in identity theft, recruit PCs into networks that attack websites and conduct other types of computer crimes. Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said Bamital is just one of several major botnets in a complex underground “click fraud ecosystem” that he believes generates at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
“Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit” and the opening sentence of the second paragraph above are spooky. When I read this article, the sensibility of all those movies painting a future in which a technology company controls everything flooded over me. Frankly, the article sent a little chill down my spine. It all seems so logical and sensible now – stop the criminals from abusing the Internet and profiting at the expense of the unwitting user. Yes, STOP INTERNET CRIME is the call to arms here.
I know, I know, this has little to do with the market, other than if that future comes to pass, what that might mean for the market now dealing with high-frequency trading, black-box trading, trade-bots, seekers, and other unknown algorithms doing their thing in large force. Like I said, spooky …
Sorry about that. I just could not shake it from my mind, so I exorcised it through writing. Anyway, a good thought to leave with you. Remember Ireland, perhaps the first of the PIIGS to go belly up …
- Ireland’s troika lenders said on Thursday that economic growth in the bailed-out country would firm to over 1 percent this year and over 2 percent in 2014.
Not bad, eh?
Trade in the day; Invest in your life …
