I think this is just a continuation of organized pumping and dumping to screw weak hands as the market continues its dance of volatility. Clearly, earnings and more importantly growth are not justifying increased market highs and the big financials are not willing to give up gains for losses because they haven't found dumb public investors who believe the hype enough to buy up their Fed organized investments. Unfortunately, for them the free lunch has been eaten. Soon it will be time for the stomach pains and indigestion.

Like oil, banks should not get overinvested in assets because after the, there's no one to sell. That's why Glass Stegal kept the US from a great depression for so many years and is why we should implement it again. Not Stegal-Glass or any other poor half assed solution.

Congrats to an end of shell games. Unfortunately, the US hasn't learned its lesson that higher corporate, or any taxes for that matter, is bad for business and bad for the economy. It is natural for people and companies to want to escape egregious taxes with little to show for it.

As many can understand, paying taxes and getting your road fixed or proper policing is fine. Sadly, taxes have kept on being raised with little to nothing coming in return besides increased corruption. Bigger government has been the barrier to growth along with increased government requirements for everything. In the future, if things keep on going the way they are, you'll have to fill out a government form to defecate or buy a ring. Companies are already feeling the pain of government imposed extra work to keep bureaucrats employed.

Sadly the Fed's only cards is threatening to raise and then not raising. Creating an actual schedule undermines their attempt to delude the public with disinformation.

"Without real upgrades to earnings or growth forecasts", this is hitting the nail on the head. The stock market will fall into the doldrums along with commodities and other sectors of the economy as earning growth slows. The upside from lower rates is already almost fully factored in already and dropping rates back to zirp is not doing much at all to counter a drop in earnings growth.

The fed only cares about increasing its power and enriching its member banks primarily the TBTF ones at the cost to regional ones. Their commitment to full employment is rather a crude lie and should have nothing to do with rate policy. Likewise, they seem to like deeper and deeper recessions and problems because it gives them more power and enables them to dump buckets of money on their friends. Expect the next big downturn to be worse than the last and them to demand more bailouts.

The corrupt game doesn't end until you are running naked in the street screaming to escape from Alice and Pauperland.

Sadly this binge on debt, like consumer binging on debt is actually the result of the work by the man (now woman) behind the curtain. The Federal Reserve is the culprit who not only stalled the economy but has created a table where those who binge on debt and buy back stock and don't grow intrinsically trounce all those running in place to their mad hatter policies that have nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with socialist ideals applied to economics that don't work. We have entered the managed economy phase of socialism which bankrupts the country without embracing socialism. Something is very wrong with how we run the central bank. Principally it is that we don't run it and Congress cedes its power and authority to it but doesn't elect or have jurisdiction over it. Instead it runs us into the ground and there isn't a thing you can do about it because it's a private firm that hides its shareholders and assets in the public's interest. Hmmm.

You are paying the price of their horrific planned economy methods that is frightfully scared of capitalism and business cycles. Sadly politicians say there is nothing they can do because it is like a act of nature. They made it so by making it so they have no power and thus the public has no say in their increasingly socialist ranting about how its up to them to create jobs by impoverishing investors by crashing interest rates artificially and creating asset bubbles that crash and bankrupt investors who were encouraged by them to take big risks. Then the government enabled it to engage in QE which violates every concept of capitalism which not only devaluates your money but goes to the select few and undermines the vary concept of money. Now it has given a private firm governmental administrative powers to manage those it seeks to enrich. Sadly, we are to blame for not voting out ever elected official in office for such an attack on our well being and demanding a change in the central bank structure to insure corruption and socialism don't thrive in the very dark back room.

Don't blame the companies for following the Fed's market just like you can't blame the investor for not liking the bubble when its being blown. Yet, inevitably, they should realize it's just a great setup to screw those who don't get out when the whistle blows. The fact the Fed is arguing to get rid of the $100 bill and allow it to tax you with negative rates shows signs that it is quite close to blowing that whistle because they can't do more QE while the public is living high on the hog. They care about your interests, but its not the way you think. You're just a side excuse for them to give themselves more money to help your increasingly poor situation.

Sadly I and other predicted that ZIRP and QE would only lead the US into the same conundrum as Japan. It doesn't take a brain scientist to see why. Those with money see their investment income shrink and risk exceeds returns. Likewise, those without money don't see incomes rise yet see housing prices rise along with whatever else gets pumped up by the bubble. Making things worse, real incomes don't rise, businesses don't invest, and the economy gets starved of investment in working capital as businesses try to increase profits through dividends (why expand when there is no growth) stock buybacks (which look terrible when the asset bubble collapses), and buying out competitors which forms a less efficient and competitive economy not a stronger one.

The simple fact is, when money or liquidity can be made without increasing goods or supplies or helping others do so, like with QE and zirp rates it destroys capitalism and is a cheat that keeps those taking advantage of it and using it to buy assets from those who don't get it to demand it doesn't cease and wanting more and more of it. It is not just corrupt, it is a tool to destroy capitalism from the core. It usurps the entire monetary system. Negative rates do the same penalizing those that have capital and making those with capital take inordinate amounts of risk to keep up with inflation which is merely keeping their wealth.

The Fed has waged war on capitalism along with the globe's central banks. Things will not go well until they allow business cycles and capitalism to correct their corruption and errors. Sadly, many bankers will go under which is why they love the existing system where everyone loses except them. This has reached a point of unsustainability even though they claim to be for the people. Their argument are lies stacked upon lies. Anyone who knows economics can see they are the principal and main cause for the economic woes we are beset with. Bring back Glass Stegall, let TBTF banks go under and the stronger regional banks pick their bones, and make Congress at least do their job and only allow true capitalists (if not fiscal conservatives) into the Fed, prevent QE, and don't give a private firm regulatory power that it doesn't use to manage banks. Unregulated power over monetary printing inevitably ends in corruption and bad policies. We can see that clearly today.

#1 GDP trending is not positive and the consumer portion of the graph is shrinking not growing.

#2 Truck tonnage did increase but so too did inventories which may be showing the glut in oil may not be the only glut this year that will show its ugly face.

#3 Stocks are having a rough time because profitability growth in stocks is smaller than it was the year before. Despite this bankers still feed clients baloney positive lines.

#4 The Fed is too close to zirp to do anything to help the economy if we fall into a downturn and now has resorted to lying and hand waving to affect the market. Smart people already knew they will think of every reason under the sun not to raise just like they did for their first raise. Sadly, investors are realizing risk lending is only increasing and thus as we move closer to a downturn especially junk lending rates are rising.

So happy Easter, but keep whatever you get safe. The only real good news is that you still control what you do with you assets and if you don't fall for those trying to shift risk onto you before the next downturn, your finances will rise again.

The whole policy of trying to add debt to people by offering lower interest rates is absurd and avoids the whole fact that it doesn't help their ability to pay. Then by lowering rates it adversely affects those that save. If those who already have lots of debt are already close to being unable to pay if not unable to pay you are actually hurting the economy by destroying even more people's ability to pay.

Housing these days is being propagated by those gambling that they can rent the houses and enjoy potential appreciation. The amount of houses bought for rentals or bought through cash only deals or through REITs make the point very clear. The Federal Reserve's zirp policies have turned the housing market into a casino and if the gamblers own too much of it will collapse phenomenally yet again. The new generation is smart to stay away from the housing market until the Federal Reserve allows the free market to reign again. Unfortunately that means a collapse of most asset classes including stocks that TBTF banks play in.

Indeed central bank policies have been a big cause of distorted and largely hidden inflation such as healthcare, education, etc. but so has perverse government intervention. Although a 100% national healthcare system squeezes out costs and generates savings, what we have done has merely increased costs by subsidizing a system with government funds that has no controls. Likewise, education costs have increased, but that is mainly due to the government loans through Sallie Mae which massively increased the amount that could be paid for education without any controls and a total disregard for the ability to pay. Thus you had parasitic firms like Trump University trying to get in on the free fall.

It got so bad the government passed a law preventing people from declaring bankruptcy to get out of their student loans. That itself should have been a sign that this system is going off the rails.

Much like the housing bubble financed with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dextroyed our economy. These will result in similar catastrophies after destroying the economy. We haven't solved Fannie and Freddie's problems and the Federal Reserve is insistent on reduplicating its efforts in the stock market. The issue is, like the housing market, when the banks and financial institutions the Federal Reserve supports ends up owning too much of an asset it is bad. That means they can no longer unload their over inflated paper gains on the unsuspecting public. We have seen trading increasingly be concentrated on big financial companies and banks. Who then can they unload onto unless they make it so tremendous they make the government pay for it much like the housing market bubble before.

What is killing the middle class is distortions from true capitalism. As long as there remains a way for people to make money without adding goods and services like QE and zirp, capitalism will continue to flail not because capitalism doesn't work, but because it is being replaced by corruption and socialist ideals that undermine capoitalism.

Growth is dead. The reason is obvious as we sit at zirp and the Federal Reserve asks to tax people with negative rates. No one can deny the central banks anti-capitalistic coruuption anymore.