How is it that some days I feel like not getting out of bed? I think, Wouldn’t it be nice to turn over, go back to sleep, and not think about anything but the dreams that come my way. Okay, that feeling is rare for me, but today I had it. I got up, though, and here I am …
The market is lazing around again. Corporate earnings are doing nothing to stimulate movement. Sure, we had two big days earlier this week, but is that all the market has to give? After all, Verizon’s earnings report should have done something for the NASDAQ.
- U.S. telecommunications group Verizon Communications Inc posted a 16 percent increase in quarterly profit, helped by higher revenue in its wireless business after it raised data prices and started selling the latest Apple iPhone.
Apparently, raising prices did little to curtail the appetite for data, which is understandable since this is the wireless age. Everyone and their brother (mother, sister, granny, aunt, uncle, cousins, and pappy) are all about the data now. Gimme more. I want more. The play in this area is going to go on for a while.
- China’s third-quarter gross domestic product grew 7.4 percent from a year earlier, the slowest pace since the first quarter of 2009 and marking the seventh straight quarter of slower growth, but matching expectations. Other data such as fixed asset investment, retail sales and industrial output slightly exceeded forecasts.
The word floating around now is that China has bottomed. True, not all the really smart people out there agree on this, just as they don’t agree on much else in the global picture today. As I read my plethora of news and data, though, I sense the tone is changing from the doom of the last few months to a more moderate tone, a hint that the worst is now behind China.
I sense that about Europe as well. The meetings going on this week are all about the future, the financial and political integration of the Eurozone. The current issues of Spain and Italy are hardly discussed, at least not openly. Spain’s debt auction went well. It sold more debt than it planned to and at a cheaper rate, as most observers and investors now seem to believe Spain’s fiscal problems will ease when it asks for a helping hand. Italy seems to have gotten a grip on its fiscal and economic problems. Greece, well, it is Greece, and aside from the rioting, it too seems settled. Not fixed, just settled.
All of this makes the market feel less panicked and more certain about a future that will work out. It will take some time for both Europe and China to revive economically, the former much longer than the latter, but they will revive. As soon as the market feels that is more certain, get ready for a bullish run. Oh, Wait! That dang Fiscal Cliff and the election in the US are still hanging around. Okay, so when the US gets through its election and the US Congress comes to understand that there is no choice but to end the uncertainty about taxes and the US debt, then watch for the long bullish run.
Trade in the day; Invest in your life …
