We know one person for sure had a good day today: Jim Cramer. Guy gets an email from Tim Cook of Apple, providing mid-quarter update... privately... to a guy who manages money and has friends who do same, and that mid-quarter update later gets read on CNBC, no doubt after Cramer and co have bought calls. WTH was Cook thinking? This has to be an obvious Reg FD failure, even for the clueless SEC.

I waited 10 minutes after the open to give the panic sellers a little time to dump, then I saw CIEN was just under $19, down about 13%. Wow. I bought a bunch of that and sold it later in the day for a near 10% gain, and I'll keep an eye on it for future weakness.

So, QE4 before rate hike? I know some of us semi-joked about this in the past, and now it looks more likely imo. I've long said too that the rate hike would be six months from "now", where now is always the current month.

Market Watch wonders if Tim Cook broke Reg-FD:

"Writes Booton, “The private disclosure, which was tweeted out by CNBC reporter Carl Quintanilla and then read on air at CNBC, may have violated the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fair Disclosure regulation, white-collar lawyers told MarketWatch.”"

blogs.barrons.com/te...eg-fd/

"I waited 10 minutes after the open to give the panic sellers a little time to dump, then I saw CIEN was just under $19, down about 13%. Wow. I bought a bunch of that and sold it later in the day for a near 10% gain, and I'll keep an eye on it for future weakness."

Ciena got upgraded this morning, it is up 5% at 21.59.  Sure begs the question if that flash crash was deliberate or just pure coincidence, right?  Nah, there is no manipulation in the stock market!  LOL

Yeah LT, so Monday the market flash crashes, something we were all assured couldn't happen again. Various brokers have issues with giving customers access and timely fills, and some of those stop orders get filled for cents on the dollar. Then Cramer gets a private mid-quarter update from the most important company in the market, and everything recovers.

The SEC will again be like the Romans searching the tiny house in Life of Brian and only being able to find a spoon.

But the market is NOT rigged, right?!?!?!  I laugh when I hear someone say that.  Thank goodness one can make money once it is accepted that these chenanigans do happen and one learns to profit from them

BTW, today is looking like it will be a repeat of yesterday

As far as I can tell,  yesterday's  volume on the S&P 500 (~GSPC) was higher even that on the day where the S&P touched the 1862 level, and is the highest since.  The market rebound from the early day's trading has to be considered impressive and acknowledged as such.  If the market internals stay strong for the next week or so, the short term bottom set yesterday may prove strong enough that if another down draft happens in Sept or October, it may hold.  A successful test of that bottom would be the best possible outcome, IMO.  

Just thinking out loud. As I said yesterday I do woder if I am being overly negative, so I am looking for data that may prove me wrong.

Forgot to mention that the VIX is also sitting at a pretty elevated level of 40.74

All factors supporting a short term bottom thesis.

P.S. bought APPL in after hours last night.  

lt cap,

I know this is obvious - but just got up recently, saw a dow elevated to 332 or so, dropped quickly to around 140 within 5 or 10 minutes, now rebounded into the 200's. And I'm sure your high vix reading must be somewhat selective - optical networkers very strong today, other interesting stocks (Ford, which traded at an astounding low of $10.44 yesterday, before it rebounded into the $13's, is pretty anemic. today.) I'm mulling whether that selectivity can be exploited or if it's a 'bear trap' of sorts. Hard to understand how a major company like Ford can have 30% of its market cap disappear in a day. only to 'reappear' later in the day. It *could* be a buy here int the $13's - dividend is around 4.5%. Lower gas prices may provide some help. But that volatility is distorting everything. I maintain that it's hard to figure out what fair values are in a market that has been/is this manipulated. Still, folks who bought some big names at discount prices (you, Jon, Jester) have timed it well, esp. having sold at a profit or optioned out shares to lock in gains.  Nice going.

The volatility is indeed distorting a lot. Jester mentioned it yesterday re Ciena, glad he made a quick 10%

I also agree that for the average investor it is tough to know what is cheap from a fundamental reason or if it is cheap for good reasons.  I am frankly not impressed with the rally today, it sort of confirms my negativity.  The breath of the rallly has narrowed somewhat as the day goes on, short of a strong rally into the close it is likely to continue to narrow.

I believe that the advance decline ratio this morning was around 4 to 1.  Now it is 2.83 to 1 for the DOW and about 2.3 to 1 for Nasdaq.  The indexes are all well off their highs as well.  Not impressive, psycology has been affected in a negative way naturally, it will take time to digest the pounding of the last week.