Stocks Explode Higher on Fears of Renewed Economic Weakness

I swear I’m not auditioning for The Onion. This is what actually happened.

Peter Boockvar on the Fed’s minutes, released at 2pm:

While nothing new, according to the just released FOMC minutes from the meeting 3 weeks ago, a majority of the committee remains deathly afraid of raising rates off zero. They still have very little faith right now in the ability of the US economy to handle a short rate at a range of anything above zero to 25bps…

The line that got markets excited however, a market that doesn’t want any policy accommodation removal whatsoever, was this: “a number of participants noted that economic growth over the medium term might be slower than they expected if foreign economic growth came in weaker than anticipated, structural productivity continued to increase only slowly, or the recovery in residential construction continued to lag.”

Of course, this phenomenal news of continued emergency-level interest rates and economic fragility immediately led to a raucous two hours of buying on top of buying, with the Dow finishing up 270 points, it’s best single day performance in a year.

Here’s what it looked like:

Find that in your textbooks.