Less Shock of the New.

Shock is wearing thin and markets are putting in some sort of recovery. Shitty stocks have put in the biggest moves judging by my SSI (shitty stocks index derived from the shitty stocks in my portfolio) which points to the day-trader community (for no one else would own these shitty stocks) having pressed the OMG button on their day-trader platforms. And it does seem to be a general 'sell shitty stocks' move as they seem independent of sector eg. shitty UK gas stocks down just when one might have thought that an OMG energy shock via Iraq and exploding Ukrainian gas pipes should have pushed them higher.

So reading between the lines, we have had the knee jerk market move on Iraq and we enter phase two where OMG is tempered with a bit of 'well actually' and the derivative of primary news, namely 'ah but', starts creeping out of the mouths of those who want to sound more intelligent that the OMGers. Hence the market balances.

From the technical side and here I cut through the plethora of homeopathic indicators to some more basic ones, we have had a shake down from 'overbought' and are now just back to 'now what' which is normally indicated by a proliferation of fibonacci levels being quoted in desperation.

In general the level of 'not done this since the last time' type of comments is still high and it is still fun to note that the pre crisis 2007 highs are still being used prolifically as a benchmark for all current performance with no respect to the fact that 2007 levels were stupid to start with on many levels. Highs or lows are always an easy anchor to chain one's own biases to, even if said high or low was, by it's very nature, an aberration.

If we measure the path of most pain as the one that derives the most 'You have got to be joking' and hence 'WTF' comments, I would happily put my money on another rally in stocks resulting in a lot of torn out bear hair on the floor.

Talking of being dulled to shocks, it's pretty clear that the extremists in the Middle East think western forces are not to be feared after the last 10 years exposure to them to the point that short of all out invasion they really don't care. Perhaps it's time to play tag wrestling with respect to Middle East intervention sending in Team China. That should cause an 'Ooo Err missus' from the likes of ISIS.

As for FOMC, It will probably go BoE and revert to mean. In other words no shocks other than a shock that you misinterpreted the last FOMC.

Onwards and upwards..