We've got one of the most bizarre and tentative recoveries from the last two days of selloffs that I can recall. Where is the snapback? The rush to buy?
I think that we have so many hedge funds trying to lock in gains that they are taking precedent over the mutual funds that want to bolster them.
Meanwhile, new money seems paralyzed because of the political polarization that makes people feel that nothing can be done until we know more about the election and the fiscal cliff. It's almost as if we decided that we liked the certainty of an Obama victory, the pre-debate situation, more than we like the possibility of a real horserace where we don't know the winner.
How polarized are we? We got a terrific jobless claim number today and there was enough doubt sown about the validity of the labor numbers last week that nobody seems to believe, let alone care, about the new, nice trajectory.
It was a nice change of pace to hear Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein talk about what could go right if we bridge the fiscal cliff, but it would also be really terrific if the Tooth Fairy existed and Santa was part of the fourth-quarter GDP.
Meanwhile, lurking and lurking is Apple (AAPL), which simply won't allow animal spirits to seep into the market despite the excitement that we have seen from Sprint (S), Realogy and then, tonight, Workday.
Funny, I reiterate that if Apple were to rally and go higher that would solve a lot of our short-term problems ... until tomorrow when JPMorgan (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) change the entire equation.
