Back in the Saddle

Back in the saddle…so what did I miss?

Stocks continue to sell-off, the equity markets seem to be weakening into the close each day.  Let’s see how this unfolds now that the earnings reports are upon us.

Looks like JPMorgan put up a monster quarter, but as I expected the impact on the market was non-existent.  The XLF names are just unimportant to the tape here.

The Egyptian military jailed Mubarak and his henchmen sons yesterday.  The implications for the Middle East are fairly meaningful.  It shows Arab people that they can hold their leaders responsible for corruption, repression and the type of tyrannical leadership that they’ve become accustomed to just lying down and putting up with.  Meanwhile across town Ma Mubarak is baking up a falafel with a file in it to spring her gang out of the big house.

A couple of weeks back I asked whether the Glencore IPO would mark the top of the commodities rally.  Glencore, a “secretive Swiss commodities trading firm” will now raise between $9 billion and $11 billion in a Hong Kong/London IPO.  Not sure if this is the Blackstone Moment for commodity markets, only hindsight will tell us.

Anything else happening today?