green shoot greenshoot

It couldn't have been a quieter day.

First, the scoreboard:

Dow: 12,971.6, -8.7, -0.0%

S&P 500: 1,369.5, -4.5, -0.3%

NASDAQ: 2,976.6, -12.0, +0.7%

And now, the top stories:
  • We have yet to see a major sell-off in stocks.  Since the beginning of the year, we have seen no declines of 1 percent or worse.  The last time we saw a trend like this was 1995 when stocks surged 34 percent for the year. Yesterday, stock market guru Laszlo Birninyi wrote that similar patterns were good reason to expect the S&P 500 to surge to 1,700 sometime this year.

  • Oil prices pulled back today after yesterday's surge.  Reports of an explosion in Saudi Arabia, which caused oil to spike, were denied.  Nevertheless, prices are still above $100 per barrel.

  • But elevated oil prices may be bullish for stocks.  UBS's Jonathan Golub argues as much.  Elevated oil prices was one of four reasons that caused Golub to raise his S&P 500 EPS estimate and boost his year-end price target to 1,475 from 1,325.

  • The number of housing contracts that are getting cancelled because people can't get a mortgage is rising. 

  • One of the ongoing controversies related to the declining unemployment rate has been the fact that the civilian labor force participation rate has been falling.  Many naysayers have argued that this has been occurring because the unemployed have just given up on the idea of getting back to work.  Barclays' economics team led by Dean Maki published some interesting research shedding light on this claim.  According to their research, the majority of the jobless who "no longer want a job" actually fall into the 55+ age bracket.  As such, it seems that most people are actually leaving the workforce because they're retiring, not because they are of prime working age and giving up.

  • There was definitely an optimistic slant to today's economics research report.  High Frequency Economics' Ian Shepherdson managed to put a positive spin on yesterday's disappointing personal income & spending, construction, and ISM manufacturing data.  Deutsche Bank published a report arguing that improving municipal finances could translate to more jobs in the public sector, which could provide a big upside surprise to upcoming jobs data.

  • There was some very bizarre news related to Wynn Resorts today.  First, the shares were halted pending news.  Then news broke via a Wynn 8-K filing that the company won approval to build a grand resort in Macau's Cotai strip.  Shares surged 6 percent on the news.  Minutes later, Wynn shares were halted yet again pending more news.  An amended 8-K saying that the previous 8-K was "filed by mistake."  This had everyone scratching their heads.  Nevertheless, shares jumped anyways.

  • The IPO of Yelp, the online review site, were priced at $15 per share.  However, they opened this morning at $22, surging as high as $26.