MARKET 'CORRECTION' - Stocks unravel after factory report; Dow sinks 300-plus points

Published: Monday, 3 Feb 2014 | 4:12 PM ET
By: Kate Gibson | Markets Writer

U.S. stocks were hammered on Monday, with benchmark indexes falling through key support levels after a gauge of factory activity disappointed, heightening concern about the economy before Friday's monthly jobs report.

Stocks had wavered ahead of the report that had U.S. manufacturing expanding at a substantially slower pace in January, driving overall factory activity to an eight-month low.

"A report like this scares people ahead of the payroll number on Friday," said Andres Garcia-Amaya, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds, who added the report's soft new orders component was of particular concern.

"We had such a strong year last year there was complacency among investors," who questioned whether they should take some profits or see if there were further reasons to invest in the U.S., with the trouble in emerging markets proving to be the initial catalyst for the steep selling in recent sessions.

Monday's selling accelerated once stocks broke through support levels, which in the case of the S&P 500, was 1,770, wrote Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at RW Baird. The S&P's next support is 1,708, said Bittles, who believes the final hour of trade will be telling.

"The significance of the ISM report is not lost on the markets that ar:e unsure how the new Fed Chair will respond. Janet Yellen comes before Congress on Feb. 11," he added.

S&P 500	S&P 500 Index	1741.89		-40.70	-2.28%
NASDAQ	Nasdaq Composite Index	3996.96		-106.92	-2.61%

Dropping below its 200-day moving average for the first time since Dec. 28, 2012, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 326.05 points, or 2.1 percent, to 15,372.80, with all but one of its 30 components in the red.

(Market correction: CNBC explains.)

The S&P 500 fell 40.70 points, or 2.3 percent, to 1,741.89, with telecommunications falling hardest and all 10 of its major groups in decline.

Falling under 4,000, the Nasdaqdeclined 106.92 points, or 2.6 percent, to 3,996.96.
For every share rising, more than six fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where almost 872 million shares traded hands. Composite volume neared 4.7 billion.

Illustrating investor uncertainty, the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, jumped nearly 15 percent to 21.12, its first rise above 20 since October.

The dollar edged lower against other global currencies and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to a three-month low, lately off 7 basis points at 2.58 percent.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101384540

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U.S. stocks were hammered on Monday, with benchmark indexes falling through key support levels after a gauge of factory activity disappointed, heightening concern about the economy before Friday's monthly jobs report.
Stocks had wavered ahead of the report that had U.S. manufacturing expanding at a substantially slower pace in January, driving overall factory activity to an eight-month low.

"A report like this scares people ahead of the payroll number on Friday," said Andres Garcia-Amaya, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds, who added the report's soft new orders component was of particular concern.

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In address, Obama lauds revival and hope of U.S. manufacturing
By Don LeeJanuary 28, 2014, 8:19 p.m.


WASHINGTON -- In his State of the Union address, President Obama pointed to a resurgence of the nation's industrial sector as a prime example of the successes of the last few years and the economic promise of America.

He praised "a manufacturing sector that's adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s," hitting on a favorite Democratic theme, blue-collar America.

It's true that factory payrolls, after a long and steep decline, have grown again -- by about 570,000 since early 2010 as manufacturing led the recovery in jobs coming out of the Great Recession. What the president didn't mention, however, is that job growth at factories has slowed sharply in the last three years -- from 207,000 in 2011, to 154,000 in 2012, to just 77,000 last year, according to the Labor Department.

There are signs that the pace of hiring in manufacturing may pick up this year as the U.S. economy is poised to grow faster and demand for American goods picks up from a recovering Europe.

Moreover, sharply rising wages in China and cheaper energy costs in the U.S. have raised hopes that more U.S. companies will bring back manufacturing work and jobs to America -- a prospect that Obama specifically mentioned in his speech Tuesday.

"Over half of big manufacturers say they're thinking of insourcing jobs from abroad," the president said. He added: "And for the first time in over a decade, business leaders around the world have declared that China is no longer the world’s No. 1 place to invest; America is."

Obama wants to add to the momentum by boosting trade and launching half a dozen high-tech manufacturing hubs at home this year, similar to two that have opened already, in Youngstown, Ohio, and Raleigh, N.C.

Even so, experts don't see a big burst of new jobs in store for U.S. manufacturing. Advanced technologies have automated many functions, and plant managers say they can't find enough skilled workers to fill openings.

It took four years to recover one-fourth of the more than 2 million factory jobs lost in the recession. Recouping the rest will be a very tall order.

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-obama-sotu-manufacturing-20140128,0,5303871.story

Is Obama’s Secret Army Mobilizing In The Wake Of The Dow’s Demise?

February 5, 2014 by John Myers

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The Dow Jones industrial average, the stock index that represents the wealth and welfare of the Nation, is collapsing before our eyes. With the Dow down almost 1,000 points in just three weeks, I have no doubt that President Barack Obama’s personal police force, his Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), is on standby to engage American citizens in big cities and country communities.
Anyone who believes that JSOC, which originally numbered in the dozens and is now 25,000 strong, was built up to its current size to deal with a few thousand Muslim extremists is disconnected from reality.
“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a Navy SEAL and JSOC soldier told The Washington Post in 2011.
From whom does this dark force take orders? The son of a Kenyan Marxist commands them. JSOC operates exclusively under the orders of the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. What would mobilize this super army into combat? It certainly wouldn’t be some Muslim militants living in the desert 8,000 miles away, sleeping beside their camels and reading from the Quran.
The Hammer Is Cocked On Obama’s Martial Law Mandate

The real purpose of JSOC may be to deal with the millions of Americans who may revolt after years of suffering a sick economy and an onrushing calamitous financial crisis. Many Americans who were once blind can now see. They recognize that the emperor, Barack Obama, has no clothes. They know that the President ruefully ignores the Constitution.
To what extent will Obama and his ruling elite go? The only logical answer is that they will bring any force necessary to protect Obama’s vision of what America should be. The trigger will be a financial collapse, beginning with the Dow and ending with the dollar. It is already set in motion. Neither all of Obama’s horses nor all of Obama’s men can restore our financial system again.
Obama’s personal army already has preparations underway, as Global Research reported in October:

Reports are that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is engaged in a massive, covert military buildup.An article in the Associated Press in February confirmed an open purchase order by DHS for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. According to an op-ed in Forbes, that’s enough to sustain an Iraq-sized war for over twenty years. DHS has also acquired heavily armored tanks, which have been seen roaming the streets. Evidently somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest. The question is, why?

The answer is obvious. Only due to massive Federal spending and the infusion of trillions of fiat dollars by the Federal Reserve did the U.S. economy not collapse completely in 2009. But the Fed and the Federal government only bought themselves some time — enough time to recruit JSOC and provide military orders against Americans. If you think I am being outrageous, then consider recent history.
The BBC reported that “ex-Labour spin doctor” Damian McBride wrote in his book Power Trip that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had his hand next to the red phone ready to call out troops during the financial collapse in 2008. McBride, who was the special economic adviser to the prime minister, quoted brown as saying:

If the banks are shutting their doors, and the cash points aren’t working, and people go to Tesco and their cards aren’t being accepted, the whole thing will just explode.
If you can’t buy food or petrol or medicine for your kids, people will just start breaking the windows and helping themselves.
And as soon as people see that on TV, that’s the end, because everyone will think that’s OK now, that’s just what we all have to do. It’ll be anarchy. That’s what could happen tomorrow.

If a recent prime minister of Great Britain was ready to point bayonets at the people who elected him, then it stands to reason that Obama has already planned to do the same. It no longer seems a question of if, but rather how soon. How soon will it be before our troops are patrolling our streets?
In the wake of a stock market (that old exchange that underpins the banks and our monetary system) in its demise, I expect it will be sooner rather than later. How can an American President fail to warn of an economic impending disaster? The answer is he doesn’t want to trip the panic button, at least not until JSOC and other military and police forces are poised to respond.
Contingency Plans

When I was a teenager, my mother and I went to Ottawa, Canada, to visit my brother and his wife. My brother was an economist for the Bank of Canada. One night, at a small gathering, I was able to talk with a retired Canadian general who had been stationed at NORAD. He told me that the United States had a contingency plan to invade Canada. It seemed inconceivable to me, and I told him so. He said there were a great many contingency plans in Washington I would find even more inconceivable.
Now that I am some decades older, not much seems inconceivable. That the financial system is hanging by a thread is to me irrefutable. I’ve been at this game too long to not know better. It would be naïve to think Obama will not put troops on the ground near our homes.
The list of enemies of the state — most of them American — continues to grow. That is why billions of dollars — the real numbers are kept top secret — are pumped into the National Security Agency and JSOC every year. They have huge underground bunkers and satellites that fly constantly over us. Anyone who believes this spy and police apparatus exists to protect us should invest every cent he has in the Dow Jones industrial average. Perhaps the Dow will go above 20,000 this year. Then again, I might meet the Easter Bunny this spring.
The Dow Jones Debt Average Will Soon Crumble

I first started writing about the markets in 1981 when the Dow stood around 1,000. Today, it stands at nearly 16,000. Do most American’s feel 16 times wealthier than they did 33 years ago? For anyone other than a Wall Street financier, the answer is no. America’s bread-and-butter industries like steel and automobiles are a shadow of what they used to be. Unemployment levels that our President so often brags about are hinged on millions of Americans who have quit looking for work.
Since 1979, U.S. productivity has soared by 79 percent, while real wages have increased by only 8 percent. After you factor in the ultra-rich bankers on Wall Street and the Hollywood moguls on the West Coast, it’s apparent that real wages haven’t budged an inch in 35 years. What has changed from when I was young is a pyramid of debt and trillions of dollars injected over the past decade (especially over the past five years of the Obama Presidency). Under his leadership, America’s financial system is nothing more than cardboard. It supports shockingly overpriced stock market values, a dysfunctional banking system and a U.S. dollar that is on the brink. One whisper of wind will bring it tumbling into ruin.
This leaves us with the greatest challenges any generation of Americans has faced. Martial law will follow as surely as red, black and pale followed the white horse in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers

Filed Under: Conservative Politics, Personal Liberty Digest™

http://personalliberty.com/2014/02/0...e-dows-demise/