Buying volume continues to be low but sellers seem afraid.

Market forces May 4,

Buyers have exhausted themselves. The buyers come in early each day and try to panic people into thinking they are missing the big move. Then the buyers slowly sell off at the higher prices leaving the day with a slight rise on low volume. Investors just take more profits and permanently get out of stocks or wait to buy after a decline in their target stocks.

Friday the market rose slightly but buying volume is near record lows. Fear had all but stopped both buying and selling in the USA. The expectation is a decline but there is the fear that somehow this time it is different as $trillions of funds make their way into the economy. Yet consumer spending was down again last month and big item purchases such as cars were down 30% to 40%.

Americans are actively looking at alternative investments to stocks and bonds. Unfortunately there are few available to investors now that are not derivatives. Young investors would do well to look at their lives and invest in their educational and their families. Roughly 50% of young people divorce and then lose half their potential wealth to lawyers, courts, councilors, and psychiatrists.

We expect Ford will be the only US automobile to survive the next ten years because they are the only one where unions made real concessions and the company seems viable without large infusions of taxpayer money. GM unions triumphed over investors, taxpayers, and consumers and that will not be forgotten. Chrysler was failing already under Daimler and Fiat does not compare with Daimler as an owner of Chrysler.

Credit Card defaults are rising and are becoming the greatest future bank risk. President Obama's attempt to get legislation to cripple bank credit policies would have destroyed several banks by taking away their ability to go after credit fraud which comes from massive numbers of dead beats trying to shake down the banks. There are no doubt some deceptive and corrupt bank policies such as late interest fees that appear a month later when a customer pays their account in full. Those interest fees of a few dollars then trigger $30+ late fees the next month. Those are deceptive because the fee appears after the customer is told the account is paid in full so the customer thinks it is a bank mistake and often neglects to pay the additional small amount which is already treated by the bank as late. But at the moment banks need support not a credit shake up.

Market Outlook

Don't look to MSNBC/GE/Pravda for any objective news or advice. The US WWII Commander in Chief and the leader of the Allied Forces in Europe warned Americans of the threat of the military-industrial complex. MSNBC/GE/Pravda is a military-industrial complex with a propaganda machine to crush its enemies in the market place. The US government is GE's best customer.

Today, Asian markets opened and played catch-up after their annual May Day holiday. China is up 3.3%, Hong Kong is up 5.5%, India is up 6.4%, and Japan up 1.7%. May Day is when the socialists and communists of the world have their big celebration. In the USA some turned out but were not reported.

European markets are flat in the range of -0.1% & 1.6% mid way through their day.

US futures indicate the markets will start flat.

We recommend cherry picking back into the market during retrenchments. This however still is not a long term investor's market.