AliBabylon: Wall Street's Biggest Pump and Dump

The largest IPO in world history is trading like a lead brick

Alibaba's share float increases by 38% on March 18th

With an even bigger insider lockup expiration coming in September.

Good News: Global Wreckovery Is "On Track" (For Implosion)

AP: Mar. 4, 2015

It's Unanimous: the outlook for global economy has brightened

"From the United States to Asia to Europe, a global economy that many had feared was faltering appears poised for a resurgence on the strength of cheap oil and falling interest rates. That's the strikingly upbeat view of economists surveyed by The Associated Press, who no longer see Europe's financial crisis, the U.S. housing market or congressional gridlock as the threats they appeared to be last year."

"The AP surveyed nearly three dozen corporate, Wall Street and academic economists from Feb. 19 to 25."

This Just In:
ZH: Mar. 4, 2015: Poland initiates 21st 'surprise' global interest rate cut (due to robust global economy)

In a recovery, aren't we supposed to be raising interest rates?

Here's what that looks like in the U.S.:
1 Year Treasury Yields going back 15 years:

Global Wreckovery Visualized

Baltic Dry (Shipping) Index All Time Low:

Feb. 23, 2015: ZeroHedge: Record Low Baltic Dry Index Driving Shipper Bankruptcies

All Commodities aka. "Tax Cut" for jobless consumers:

Canadian Dollar:

Housing Wreckovery Visualized

Lumber:

I foresee a lot of bankrupt Econo-dunces on the other side of Wreckovery.

BTFATH: The Most Expensive Market In History

Unlike everything else around here, the price to sales ratio doesn't lie

Now higher than Y2K (red line):

http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-price-to-sales

Rydex Bullish:Bearish Asset Allocation
New all time high, as of Friday

Peak Stupidity.
I know, I say that every day and still they find a way to prove me wrong.

Deja Deja Vu. Unfortunately, You Can Only Sell Your Soul Once.

After that the bill is due...

Nasdaq 5000: "It's different this time"

Indeed. New Highs:

Cisco has an uncanny ability to peak at the worst time
In Y2K, Cisco was the most valuable company in the world. It was going to be the first trillion dollar company in the world. Its top in 2000 and 2007 coincided with the top in the market. It's now at the level it reached at the top 7 years ago. 

March 2000:
"One trillion dollars. That's how much at least one analyst believes Cisco Systems Inc. will be worth in a few years--and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone to disagree."

A Closer View: 2007, 2010 Flash Crash. And Now:

March 2015:
Morgan Stanley increases Apple price target by $30 (aka. $175 billion in market cap)

Already in production: Apple computers, tablets, music players, phones, Apple TV
Due this month: Apple Watch
In Planning: Apple Car

Next: Apple House, Apple Country

As it was in 2000 and 2007, the Idiocracy is once again attempting to reach escape velocity from reality

Nasdaq 5000: Fifteen Years to Nowhere

The Nasdaq Peaked in March 15 years ago. Let's pretend it can't happen again

After the Y2K collapse, investors swore off stocks and ploughed their remaining funds into real estate. Of course that turned out to be a low interest rate Fed-funded disaster as well. So, then following 2008, investors switched back to stocks again. In fifteen years, they've learned nothing. Which means that the real lesson lies ahead.

Today, briefly, the Nasdaq touched 5000 again, igniting a firestorm of Wall Street bullshit:

The "This Time It's Different" Nasdaq (after the jump)...

Harvard Risk: Intellectual Bankruptcy

This Post-2008 Ponzinomic clusterfuck has consisted solely of substituting liquidity for solvency. That is precisely the definition of a Ponzi scheme - a con job that disguises inherent insolvency (liabilities > assets) by using inbound liquidity to meet short-term outflows (until such time as there is a capital call).

The Bernie Madoffs of our era - of which there are untold numbers in economics, finance, and academia are all just "clever" ponzi schemers. Clever dunces really.

On the other side of this self-imploding Jedi Mind Trick, when the liquidity abruptly recedes amid a $200 trillion stampede of risk asset reallocation, the Idiocracy will be shocked to realize that there is now neither liquidity nor solvency.

It was all an intellectually bankrupt illusion leading to the world's largest financial collapse, without any comparison.

University Sewer System aka. Mutual Assured Bankruptcy

To call the University System a colossal failure is a gross understatement, especially here in the U.S. 

Sixty grand per year at most private schools (and out-of-state public schools). That's three times more than my entire degree cost in Canada circa 1990. The four year cost is 12x what I paid.

The sense of entitlement that emanates from the "higher echelons" of academia has been fueled by decades of spiraling tuition fees eagerly paid by stooge alumni besotted with their school sports teams. Essentially an entire generation of salesmen Lost Boys.

The college experience has devolved into a non-stop drunken frat party interspersed with frantic episodes of rote memorization. Clever dunces are graduating by the thousands...

A Centrally Planned Stampede From Risk. Visualized

The Fed's balance sheet is now shrinking for the first time in over two years. The last time that happened, shit broke

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm

Fed balance sheet with VIX Options Volatility Index. I would point out that the VIX bottomed last July when the market was significantly lower:

Close-up view of Fed balance sheet which peaked mid-January:

Bragging Billunaires: "Everyone, shut the fuck up"

We live in a world owned and controlled by billionaire oligarchs constantly telling us that everything's just great. This is exactly what we should expect at the hubristic late stages of a Ponzi scheme

The second richest man in the world is the latest clueless out-of-touch tool to tell us just that:

MW: Feb. 28, 2015

Buffett's 2014 letter: Corporate cancers and preachers of pessimism

"Who has ever benefited during the past 238 years by betting against America? If you compare our country’s present condition to that existing in 1776, you have to rub your eyes in wonder"

[That part is true - the Founding Fathers would be shitting bricks right now]

"In my lifetime alone, real per-capita U.S. output has sextupled."

[Debt-adjusted that's total bullshit, and meanwhile it was all skewed to the top 10%]

"Though the preachers of pessimism prattle endlessly about America’s problems, I’ve never seen one who wishes to emigrate"

[BBG: Feb. 2015: Record numbers of Americans renouncing their citizenship]

"Quit bitching. I've never been richer"

Berkshire @$220,000 per share. If you sell your house you can buy one share (or two):

Berkshire with Fed balance sheet (red line) (95% correlation, lower pane). As I was saying, the ingredients of success are clearly: luck, skill, effort. Skill and effort left the building a long time ago. This is all compliments of a debased money supply:

From American Dream to American Lottery

It's "our" fault this is happening. Too many morons still think they are going to be the next Bill Gates. Too many Americans think that it's only a matter of time until they strike it rich and join the ranks of the ever-richer, ever-fewer elite. When in fact, it's exactly the opposite - the economy has become a zero sum game between the wealthy and everyone else. So the odds of making it rich are the limit approaching impossible. The American Dream has turned into the American Lottery.

In the meantime, our grotesquely wealthy slave masters will continue to tell us to quit bitching and suck it up. Which everyone does, while envying the lifestyles of the rich and shameless.

2008 only flushed out one Bernie Madoff. This time we'll flush out the rest.

This Week in Ponzi World

This week, Fed dopium dealers reminded their dopium addicts that they are using way too much free monetary dopium

Almost a year ago, they said the same thing:

ZH: July 15, 2014

Janet Yellen's Irrational Exuberance Moment

"valuation metrics in some sectors do appear substantially stretched—particularly those for smaller firms in the social media and biotechnology industries"

ZH: Feb. 25, 2015

Fed Warns (again) that equity valuations are (still) elevated

"Overall equity valuations by some conventional measures are somewhat higher than their historical average levels, and valuation metrics in some sectors continue to appear stretched relative to historical norms"

Here's how this asinine situation looks visually via Biotech, the leading sector since 2009:

Other "News"