all-time highs – The Burning Platform

ALL TIME HIGHS

The stock market has reached new all-time highs this week, just two weeks after plunging over the BREXIT result. The bulls are exuberant as they dance on the graves of short-sellers and the purveyors of doom. This is surely proof all is well in the country and the complaints of the lowly peasants are just background noise. Record highs for the stock market must mean the economy is strong, consumers are confident, and the future is bright.

All the troubles documented by myself and all the other so called “doomers” must have dissipated under the avalanche of central banker liquidity. Printing fiat and layering more unpayable debt on top of old unpayable debt really was the solution to all our problems. I’m so relieved. I think I’ll put my life savings into Amazon and Twitter stock now that the all clear signal has been given.

Technical analysts are giving the buy signal now that we’ve broken out of a 19 month consolidation period. Since the entire stock market is driven by HFT supercomputers and Ivy League MBA geniuses who all use the same algorithm in their proprietary trading software, the lemming like behavior will likely lead to even higher prices. Lance Roberts, someone whose opinion I respect, reluctantly agrees we could see a market melt up:

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“Wave 5, “market melt-ups” are the last bastion of hope for the “always bullish.” Unlike, the previous advances that were backed by improving earnings and economic growth, the final wave is pure emotion and speculation based on “hopes” of a quick fundamental recovery to justify market overvaluations. Such environments have always had rather disastrous endings and this time, will likely be no different.”

As Benjamin Graham, a wise man who would be scorned and ridiculed by today’s Ivy League educated Wall Street HFT scum, sagely noted many decades ago:

“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”

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S&P 500 EARNINGS HAVE FALLEN AND CAN’T GET UP

It’s a long way down folks. S&P 500 earnings are already down 12% from their all-time highs. They reached these heights due to the Federal Reserve ZIRP and QE, along with the pocket protector wearing accountants at the FASB knuckling under to Bernanke and Geithner and allowing the Wall Street banks to report fake profits. Reversing hundreds of billions in loan loss reserves booked in 2009 while “earning” billions from parking money at the Fed has allowed Wall Street banks to report $700 billion of fake profits since 2010.

The massive corporations that make up the S&P 500 have generated increasing profits by refinancing their debt at the artificially lowered rates from the Fed, raising prices, moving jobs to foreign countries, and giving their workers 2% raises. Revenue growth among the S&P 500 has been non-existent. The game is up. There are no more employees to fire. There are no more loan loss reserves to reverse. There is no more debt to refinance. QE is done. The Fed can’t lower interest rates below 0%.

Profits are falling and will continue to fall. The stock market will follow.

Chart of the Day

With Q2 earnings largely in the books (over 97% of S&P 500 firms have reported), today’s chart provides some long-term perspective on the current earnings environment by focusing on 12-month, as reported S&P 500 earnings. Today’s chart illustrates the dramatic nature of the earnings plunge during the financial crisis as well as the recovery that followed — a recovery that took earnings from levels not seen since the Great Depression to a new record high. Over the past two quarters, however, S&P 500 inflation-adjusted earnings have declined by a significant 12% from their record highs — a significant concern going forward.

PLEASE, NOT THE BACON

Bacon prices can’t keep rising. I love it too much. This development could jump start the revolution. It’s a known fact that bacon price increases initiated the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Little known fact – Lenin was baconaholic.

Even with bacon prices at all time time highs, the BLS says it hasn’t increased at all because the average person switched to eating Purina Beggin Strips. It’s the next best thing to real bacon.

Even dogs are upset about the increase in meat prices.

Price of Beef and Bacon Reach All-Time High

July 22, 2014 – 11:14 AM

By Ali Meyer

(CNSNews.com) – The price of beef and bacon hit its all-time high in the United States in June, according to data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).In January 1980, when BLS started tracking the price of these commodities, ground chuck cost $1.82 per pound and bacon cost $1.45 per pound. By this June 2014, ground chuck cost $3.91 per pound and bacon cost $6.11 per pound.A decade ago, in June 2004, a pound of ground chuck cost $2.49, which means that the commodity has increased by 57 percent since then. Bacon has increased by 78.7 percent from the $3.42 it cost in June 2004 to the $6.11 it costs now.

In one month, beef increased from $3.85 in May 2014 to $3.91 in June 2014. Bacon increased from $6.05 in May 2014 to $6.11 in June 2014.

Each month, the BLS employs data collectors to visit thousands of retail stores all over the United States to obtain information on the prices of thousands of items to measure changes for the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI is simply the average change over time in prices paid by consumers for a market basket of goods and services.

The BLS found that there was a 0.1 percent change in the food index in June, which tracks foods like meats, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy, as well as many others. “The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs increased in June, though its 0.2 percent increase was its smallest since December,” stated BLS.

“The index for food at home has increased 2.4 percent over the past year, with the index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs up 7.5 percent,” BLS stated.

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Price of Beef and Bacon Reach All-Time High

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