Why the heck not? Able Noser has a report out that details how just 112 stocks are responsible for 50% of the trading volume. Actually, just the top 20 stocks are responsible for 26% of the trading volume! That’s all you need to know. Bots are playing with their bull bias, and therefore so should you.

More amazingly, 9 of the top 20 names by volume are ETF’s! So basically, eleven stocks kind-of matter.  The rest are just correlation, low-volume stat-arb stories. This is what our market has become.

But hey, we can adjust like everyone else! We are rolling a new stock screening product out, called Themis Total Tally (TTT), and it does away with all the noise you encounter every day watching terminals that have green and red numbers, as well as alerts with cutesy sounds that go off. No, TTT is totally different and cuts to the crux. It is a widget that you have on your desk top (actually we are making an i-Pad APP for it as well), which just has those eleven stocks detailed in a chart, with all the relevant data pertaining to those stocks: the symbol, the name of the stock, the volume, and where you are in the queue for a rebate. Price is irrelevant so we leave that out. Obviously P/E is also irrelevant so we leave that out as well. And to navigate between stocks to get the important data that we include, you just roll around a click wheel. So, if you are interested in this product, please call 1-800 TTT-DOPE; our operators are standing by.

By the way, the Fed can’t like the chart immediately below, as it its shows the 10yr yield rising and sitting against its 50day moving average. Hundreds of billions of dollars have poured into bond and bond mutual funds. And now rates are rising and prices are falling. Great… more wealth destruction for the masses.

Futures are trading off just a bit this morning, and overseas are markets can be best described as flattish. The DJ Euro STOXX, FTSE, CAC, and DAX are all little changed, as are Japan, China, Hong Kong, and India. Interestingly enough, Japan is off just a tad because S&P is warning that the country’s credit quality is sinking, and this is offset by a large margin victory for PM Kan. European economic data was weaker than expected. So coming in to today we have a whole lot of “Meh”. Have fun in the first and last 45 minutes.

Where we left off 4:00pm EST:

DJIA                                             10,544.13                                         +81.36

S&P500                                          1,121.91                                          +12.35

NASDAQ  100                                2,285.71                                         +43.23

Futures now at 5:30am EST:

DJIA                                                       10,448.00                                              -24

S&P500                                                   1,112.90                                              -2.9

NASDAQ 100                                         1,910.50                                              -6.25

Key Data out today: 

08:30:                                                    Advance Retail Sales

10:00:                                                    Business Inventories

Since the prior close, some key stories:

–       SEC reconsiders its stock-trading crusade (Bloomberg story). 

–       Lockheed to take a charge for executive buyouts.

–       POWI cuts 3Q; falls.

–       Blockbuster CFO resigns.

–       Horace Mann CEO On Leave after a DUI.

–       US Government forces Retirees to accept 0% on their investments in a form of Indirect Bailout of the world so that corporate America (i.e. IBM, MSFT, etc.) can borrow money at 1% and buy back stock yielding 2% and higher.

–       CME “inadvertently” made test orders in live energy and metals markets yesterday afternoon. Whoops!

Earnings:

Pre-open:                              BBY, CBRL, KR, WNI

After Close:                         NDZ, PLL