This may be a strange title for a "populist" blog, but the behavior of the stock market is a leading indicator for the economy, so there is some value in calling attention to it when it signals something to us. Not to mention that progressives like to make money too.
I'm really impressed with the behavior of the stock market these last couple of days. We've had a slew of bad news, mainly worse than expected, and instead of collapsing, the market has held its own both days, finishing, less than 1% lower as of Tuesday's close.
Not only that, but both days have seen strong rallies in the last hour. That's the sign of a market that wants to go higher, i.e., a bull market.
I know, I just got done posting graphs for a 120 year period and said I distrust short term charts. But when the market behaves in an unexpected way -- going down on good news or up on bad news -- I pay attention. This market wants to go up, even on bad news.
I've been saying that we are likely to have a "respite" later this year, in our multi-year slow motion economic bust. The last two days' behavior of the markets is yet another (small) sign presaging that respite.
The Economic Populist
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Populism
I think the stock market is Populist. Anything that affects the US national interests, working America's interests to me is Populist . Sometimes solutions presented that sound great in philosophy and theory have dire consequences to the United States, such as "comprehensive" immigration reform is one that comes to mind. Others that sound very anti-US worker in theory such as corporate tax code while it might seem to give corporations what they want, can actually be populist in that it has a strong positive effect in investment and jobs in the US. I'm posting relevant snippets in the forum on it.
I'm hoping our job is to dig out the nitty gritty, which frankly rarely occurs in the press. I mean if you have congress representatives not reading the bills, never mind the press and analyzing the details before something passes how can we expect to get reforms in the US national interest?
I'm not so sure on your analysis though because I'm waiting for those massive write downs to be announced, but I do find it bizarre that we get all of these really bad economic indicators and yet it goes up.