Yeah, right – the government is making a “profit” on its “investments” in insolvent banks. That’s what the New York Times and government puppet,  ABC News would have us believe. Rolfe points out that the reality is that for the American people to actually make a profit on these government handouts, er…  bailouts, you have to ignore more than half the total funding we provided:

On a risk-adjusted basis, we’re way in the hole. The long-term costs/consequences of explicit government guarantees against failure –which is what these banks now have — is many, many times larger than any profits earned on TARP warrants.

Yves offers similar insight that this “profit” is bogus.  Face it, this is why the stocks of the bailed-out financials have been manipulated, with incredible volumes, by the bailed-out financial “mafia” to such irrationally high levels lately.  And make no mistake, this isn’t short covering as argued by FT…it’s plain ole (illegal) manipulation.

In a very rare straying from the party line: this CNBC piece focuses on the a market propped up by “manipulation and government intervention” with no painful healing process allowed…

In a Seeking Alpha post on March 19, Great Trades described how the Tick 10 day exponential moving average was, of late, serving to warn of market pullbacks:

The below chart of the Tick 10-day EMA readings shows that extremely high positive readings have previously preceded sharp selloffs:

The current level of the Tick 10-day EMA is extremely high, increasing the likelihood of a strong pullback very soon.

We have tried to update this chart through today’s (March 24) trading, below.

As can be seen, the salient feature of the updated chart is that the Tick 10-day EMA is still very high – indicating a possible retreat from the recent 7% gain.  However, technicals like these are just that – technicals. With the government likely involved in a variety of manipulative actions, some overt, some clandestine, technicals can break down even more than normal…

Zero hedge (see the 2:47 post) has this to say on what we agree is illegal market manipulation by Citi (and now, B of A and JPM) executives:

“The critical language is:

It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange….To make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading

Now the beauty of this little leak is that it covered a two month period, which means it cannot be compared directly with the quarterly results. It does not include writedowns (which I would argue makes it misleading).”