All Eyes on Employment Data

Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be:
Why then should we desire to be deceived?
Fifteen Sermons
-Bishop Butler

What exactly is going on with this market? For the last few weeks the experts screamed at the top of their lungs "The End is near," and rallies faded while volatility went through the roof. We got word from Jamie Dimon to brace for a "scary" ride as the Fed made adjustments to policy—not a newsflash other than the fact it was coming from the smartest dude on Wall Street. Why? I don't get a daily briefing of thought from the CEO of JP Morgan each morning, so why was he so benevolent yesterday, sharing pearls of wisdom?

The market was in the midst of crashing just as the dollar was crashing, yields zooming through the roof giving gold a bid but overall sending the market in a tizzy.

The Dow tumbled to 14,844, on the cusp of total collapse, and then it reversed and somehow surged into the close finishing the day at 15,040.62, its highest point of the session!

What is the real deal? Why are big time investors going out of their way to help regular folks navigate the market? I don't think JP Morgan told their clients to dump everything on the heels of Dimon's comments, yet I bet a lot of people watching television took heed and sold into that midday dip. Maybe they'll feel better by the end of this session, but I know at some point, perhaps not too far in the distant future, they'll feel a little duped. Yet, maybe there's something inside us that makes us almost crave the deceit and tricks of Wall Street.

It's called fear!

People got crushed in part because of greed (their own rarely admitted) and scams of Wall Street and a market that was up on smoke and mirrors and a new paradigm that was an old parlor trick. Then the market came back slowly and without fanfare, but went down when the lethal combination of housing and Wall Street derivatives set off a blast with a nuclear mushroom. Through it all great companies rebounded and even some formerly great companies regained that old magic (see Gap Stores symbol GPS).

Now, we are being warned by Wall Street, which didn't bother the last couple times to give a heads up that things could get rollick. In the end, things and actions are what they are, and consequences will be what they'll be, but that doesn't mean we have to be suckers along the way.