Monday, July 26, 2010

7/26/10 Midevening Report: Market rally excites quants as S&P rubs up against upper bollinger band

The market ran again today as Fed Ex boosted guidance due to international companies wanting shit faster and macro data headlines were manipulatedly good (like Cameron Diaz' face on a magazine cover).  The big macro news was that new home sales jumped 24% which is the biggest jump since May of 1980 and totally sounds better than saying new home sales were the second lowest since 1963 (and you remember 1963, the year the Beatles released their first album, JFK was assassinated, Raquel Welch was breaking in to Hollywood, and full muff was the norm).  Of course 1963 is also when this data started being recorded, so for all we know it could also be the second lowest month since 1863, but whatever.  So before we start handing out lobster tails and buy one get one free blumpkin passes to Amber Lancaster's powder room (and Money McBags will take two of those please), perhaps we shoud look at the shittiness (which may be too technical of a term for most) of the absolute number and ignore the relative spin.

To start with, last month's new home sales were revised down from 300k to 267k which is only a minor 11 fucking percent downward revision (and minor in the way that reading a Thomas Pynchon book gives someone a minor headache or bumping in to Audrina Patridge would give someone a minor stiffy).  Anyway,  last month's number of 300k, which is now 267k, means that new home sales fell by 37%, 40%, or 47% last month depending on which of the manipulated numbers from two months ago you want to use as the base line (the 504k initially reported, the 446k downwardly revised number from last month, or the even more downwardly reviesed 422k reported this month, and yes, two fucking months after the data, the numbers are still being downwardly revised because apparently they have yet to hit zero).

The point is, the awfulness of last month's number keeps getting worse but investors are overlooking that because the headline growth for this month is 24% and 24% growth is a big fucking number (even though in absolute terms it is still the second worst number ever and will more than likely be revised down next month to 305k). So while economists and the Commerce Department can point to growth rates as a sign of accomplishment, it's as disingenuous as landing on an aircraft carrier and claiming Mission Accomplished in Iraq or telling Rosie O'Donnell she doesn't look fat in those jeans.  In short,  last month's historically bad number gets revised down more and thus this month's second worst historically bad number gets to look slightly better because of the BS growth rate off of the downward revision.  Just imagine how great this month's number would have looked if it went from one new home sold to two.

Anyway, the 330k number being reported is in fact ~24% higher then the 267k number (but only 10% higher than the 300k number that was actually reported last month) and it beat analyst guesses by 10k and since analysts have proven to be so right over the last 5 years to 3,000 years, a beat is such good fucking news that the commerce department can spend the day admiring the new portrait of Carlos Gutierez  instead of trying to fix shit.  But lets not let details get in the way of a good rally because that would be like letting a little hepatitis get in the way of boning Pam Anderson.

There wasn't much international news today except that Europe is starting an anti-trust case against IBM, though if Money McBags were IBM, he wouldn't trust the europeans in their black jeans and with their love of european fudge pops.  The EU is claiming that IBM may have abused their dominant position in the mainframe computer market like the dominant Ariel X abuses her defeated foes in the NSFW Ultimate Surrender Summer Vengeance tournament.  This anti-trust case stems out of complaints from a company called T3 communications which is a firm invested in by MSFT and other than Tiger Woods' ex-wife, MSFT is the foremost authority on anti-trust.

The big stock news of the day is that Fed Ex raised their guidance for fiscal 2011 from $4.40 to $5.00 per share to $4.60 to $5.20 per share and this comes after UPS showed everyone what Brown can do for them by squeezing out a solid quarter last week.  UPS' revised guidance was driven by increased demand for international priority packages where according to a Wellls Fargo analyst: "Growth in Asia has been red hot, fueled by the tech sector and iPhones and handheld devices and discounts on Hello Kitty's line of dildos."  Fed Ex is feeling good enough about their operational efficiences and global volume growth that they have reinstituted their 401k matching program so now employees can lose the company's money in addition to their own.

In other stock news, BP is getting a new CEO and hopefully this one won't won't be a dud even with a name like Robert Dudley (and that was such a bad pun that Jay Leno should feel free to steal it).  Dudley will be the first Amercian born CEO of BP as the company's board hopes to improve on the langauge barrier between themselves and the US government (as apparently "your shit is not safe" didn't translate correctly from US regulators to BPs former CEO).  Otherwise, it was a light earnings day on the market but Roper industries put up a nice Q despite a rumored take over from Furley Industriies which turned out just to be a wrongly overheard conversation in the company kitchen.

In small cap stocks, IMAX had a strong day on Inception's continued box office outperformance and the stock has bounced back nicely since Money McBags talked about it as something to avoid the other week.  Money McBags favorites CRUS and KITD also had solid days, as did just about everything else in the small cap space, except for IBKR which deserves to go down for how they made Money McBags feel after their earnings announcement last week which he was more highly anticipating than the inevitable Christina Hendricks playboy spread (and yes, it will happen).  Money McBags is short on time today so he won't be getting to any detailed small stock analysis but it should be a busy week with QCOR, IMAX, CTGX, and NTRI reporting so he promises he will have more compny breakdowns for you as necessary.  If you are craving for more dick jokes though, Money McBags was busy in the comments section from Friday's column, so enjoy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great Post! Money is the MAN!