Insiders are selling this rally like crazy, so says The Pragmatic Capitalist:

“I recently wrote about reports that insider selling was at record highs and buying was practically non-existent.  The selling has become even more alarming in the last week and the buying has slowed to an absolute trickle. Below you’ll find the list of latest insider buys and sells.  The sells are staggering with the amounts ranging from $3MM to $63MM (and I was only able to copy one page).  The buys, on the other hand, are meager and range from $100K to $635K (the $800K purchase is a few months old and shouldn’t be in the data).   You’ll also notice that the screen came up with just 18 total purchases vs 170 total sales (the lowest of sell screen data were sales of over $400K which is not shown here due to the large size of the results…”

My Comment

Wall Street, as well as the administration, both want to boost the market for reasons that partially overlap. The administration wants to be able to justify the bail-outs and retain some of the shine of of the pre-election rhetoric of “change”.  But too much optimism will work against legislation/reforms that need a certain amount of panic to be passed.

Wall Street, on the other hand, doesn’t want panic at any price. It wants stability and optimism. And is eager to jump at any positive news it gets.

Mike Martin at MartinKronicle has a long and interesting interview with Victor Sperandeo (of “Trader Vic”), who calls it – as most informed commentators do – a bear market rally.  Sperandeo’s voice is a bit hard to follow but Martin’s questions are searching and cover a lot of ground.

Two points:

Sperandeo (like nearly everyone else) thinks currency depreciation is inevitable and massive inflation around the corner.

He’s pessimistic about the Middle East situation and anticipates more friction with Iran.