Squak

What better name for a show, except maybe "Screech", I promise I VERY rarely do this unless it's an F_O_M_C day or mistake, but considering where the Dow is today and what happened the last time we were here and what was being said, I thought I'd listen to the tone, surprisingly Jim was much more circumspect, warning viewers that the last time the Dow was here (all time new nominal highs) on October 13th,  it was the perfect day to sell, it was the last day to sell as a week later the Dow dropped more than 5%, a month later -8.5%, 3 months later down -18% and other than a pretty impressive bear market rally, from there it just got worse until the market took back the entire 2002/2003-2007 bull market and then some, with the bulk of the 5 year bull market being erased in 8 months.

What I remember were the screams, "We are going to 20,000", it was scary stuff.

In any case, ZH just published a then and now comparison between the 2007 highs and todays, I think it's interesting because it's one of the topics I have talked about in the past, the market valuations here vs when we were in a bull market, but nothing I ever posted made the point like this does, although I think the point was made, then we'll get back to some analysis as some charts are starting to move.

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: Then 14164.5; Now 14164.5
• Regular Gas Price: Then $2.75; Now $3.73
• GDP Growth: Then +2.5%; Now +1.6%
• Americans Unemployed (in Labor Force): Then 6.7 million; Now 13.2 million
• Americans On Food Stamps: Then 26.9 million; Now 47.69 million
• Size of Fed's Balance Sheet: Then $0.89 trillion; Now $3.01 trillion
• US Debt as a Percentage of GDP: Then ~38%; Now 74.2%
• US Deficit (LTM): Then $97 billion; Now $975.6 billion
• Total US Debt Oustanding: Then $9.008 trillion; Now $16.43 trillion
• US Household Debt: Then $13.5 trillion; Now 12.87 trillion
• Labor Force Particpation Rate: Then 65.8%; Now 63.6%
• Consumer Confidence: Then 99.5; Now 69.6
• S&P Rating of the US: Then AAA; Now AA+
• VIX: Then 17.5%; Now 14%
• 10 Year Treasury Yield: Then 4.64%; Now 1.89%
• EURUSD: Then 1.4145; Now 1.3050
• Gold: Then $748; Now $1583
• NYSE Average LTM Volume (per day): Then 1.3 billion shares; Now 545 million shares