The Merry Marketeers were able to coax the SP futures to the 1100 level, in a show of support for the results of the Euopean Bank Stress Tests. Huzzah!
The results were rather anemic, even given the somewhat unrealistic nature of the tests.
I can understand that they did not include a sovereign default by the likes of Greece, but that they included only the banks' trading portfolios, and not their commercial loan portfolios, seemed almost astonishing.
Reggie Middleton does a good job discussing the European Stress Tests here and here
But in the meanwhile, the increasing trivialization of the capital markets by the financial engineers in the service of their nonsensical schemes seems more alarming than anything else I could imagine.
Can they do what they did in 2005, and break the market out to the upside and inflate yet another financial asset bubble? They may very well do this. And it will once again end badly, much worse than the last. But why should they care, or stop, while they continue to become rich?
For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. And the name of the lawless one will be revealed. Not everyone who calls to me saying, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the ones who do the will of my Father. Many will say, ‘Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you servants of lawlessness.'
Matthew 7:21-23