Denial

Two companies that I happen to like, even in this over-leveraged world, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and ConocoPhillips (COP) announced large stock buybacks today. ConcocPhillips' buyback amounts to nearly 10-percent of the company's oustanding shares. But again, we're witnessing stocks going up more on the basis of financial engineering and less on even the most congenial outlook that even the most optimistic bull can conceive. The only other reason for another day of advancing stock prices was a fresh new batch of announced mergers and acquisitions, which always occur en masse near market bottoms--NOT!! Also, the bulls are gearing up for what is "sure to be" another robust earnings season..... Of course, the airball tossed by Lexmark (LXK) was deemed to "mean nothing" according to the nearly delusional CNBC market commentator, Bob Pisani, from the floor of the NYSE. For those keeping score, Lexmark just happens to be among the world's biggest manufacturers of printers and ink cartridges and their warning of a pretty wide miss for its fiscal 2Q and a breakeven for Q3 was deemed to "mean nothing" for the rest of tech, Dell (DELL) included, which ended flat on the day. Lexmark was whacked for about 8-percent. The current brand of stock bulls are like those really hungry scavenger dogs that you drive up to as they rip and tear at a dead carcass in the middle of the road up until the very last possible millisecond just before they scurry for safety as you think they're about to roll up under your auto to become part of the pavement. Except, I'm not so sure many of these folks will actually pull away safely. These bulls, I believe, think that a few tons of screaming metal is incapable of doing bodily harm. "Denial" is the word that comes to mind.