Courtesy of Mish With $1 billion already wasted Lawmakers Vote on $2 Billion More to Replenish ‘Clunkers’ Program. The U.S. House opened debate on an emergency measure to add as much as $2 billion to the “cash for clunkers” program after a burst of demand exhausted most of the initial $1 billion. The initiative to encourage new-car sales is...

Courtesy of Phil’s Stock World Can the S&P make 1,000 today? As we can see from AlphaTrends chart, that’s going to be a tough breakout and, even if we do make it, can we hold it? In yesterday’s post I said we were ready to switch off our brains and BUYBUYBUY the rally and our breakout levels did all hold yesterday but I decided, in...

Courtesy of MISH Banks have finally come to a realization there does not need to be a branch on every corner. If this story sounds familiar it is because the same discussions took place in 2000. Here are some interesting comments from the headline story Bank of America to close Hudson branch on Friday. Bank of America spokesman James Mahoney: “Over...

Jesse from Jesse’s Cafe’ Americain has a great take on the S&P hourly chart. Goldman, Wall Street and their friends in government and the media came out swinging this morning. The SP futures took off from the neckline on some fairly thin rationales, but good enough for an end of month paint job. This is starting to feel like a real...

Baltic Dry Index: Does the Rally Mean ‘The Worst Is Over’? 7/30/2009 After falling more than 90% in 2008, the Baltic Dry Indexhas rebounded strongly this year. But before you see it as a bullish sign, read what Chris Carolan, the editor of EWI’s Asian-Pacific and European Short Term Update publications, told subscribers in the July...

Chart Courtesy of Business Insider

By Nomi Prins, via Mother Jones July 28, 2009 — This is perhaps the most important thing I learned over my years working on Wall Street, including as a managing director at Goldman Sachs: Numbers lie. In a normal time, the fact that the numbers generated by the nation’s biggest banks can’t be trusted might not matter very much to...

Courtesy of AC Investor Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com ( click to enlarge ) ESLR is falling in the after-hours session after reported a wider quarterly net loss on lower selling prices and rising start-up costs for production facilities. The second-quarter net loss was $20.3 million, or 11 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $8.9 million,...

The NASDAQ 100 closed higher on Thursday as it extends this month’s rally. The low-range close sets the stage for a steady to lower opening on Friday. Stochastics and the RSI are overbought but remain neutral to bullish signaling that sideways to higher prices are possible near-term. If September extends this month’s rally, the 62% retracement...

(TheStreet) — American Superconductor (AMSC) took flight Thursday, its shares soaring more than 22%, after the company posted its first-ever quarterly profit. The wind-energy components maker earned $1.8 million, or 4 cents a share, in the period, compared with a loss of $6.1 million, or 14 cents a share, a year ago. It was American Superconductor’s...

Crude oil rose more than $3 a barrel and gasoline surged the most in four months after better than expected corporate earnings and as jobless claims held below late June levels. Oil gained as much as 4.9 percent as stocks advanced on increased optimism that the economic decline will ease. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance decreased...

Free Video Lesson Watch Jim Martens, Senior Currency Strategist at Elliott Wave International, the world’s largest market forecasting firm, give tips on how to trade forex with Elliott wave analysis – ...

Courtesy of Pragmatic Capitalist Investor sentiment is now in the wildly bullish camp.  The recent spat of “better than expected” earnings shifted market sentiment on a dime.  The latest reading on the AAII% bulls shows a very high reading of 48.  This has typically been a level associated with sharp stock market sell-offs. The latest readings...

“The dollar dropped most against the pound of its 16 major counterparts Thursday after a report showed U.K. house prices rose for a third month and a rally in stocks spurred investor appetite for riskier assets. Tomorrow’s U.S. gross domestic product numbers will be key for giving the market some direction,” reports Bloomberg. * “What...

Courtesy of Zero Hedge As of 10 minutes ago, Larry Kudlow would like you to believe that Q2 earnings are so much better than Q1. That is a flat out lie. The chart below, straight out of Bloomberg which we demand all readers with a BBERG terminal replicate using SPX Index EA <go>, demonstrates that Q2 earnings are now in fact worse than Q1. While...