Gold Futures Index (GOLD)

[Pro-Life]

Stocks Surge, And Everyone Is Terrified As Hell: Here's What You Need To Know
Joe Weisenthal | Nov. 4, 2010, 4:00 PM

http://www.businessinsider.com/closing-bell-november-4-2010-11

A mini taste of Zimbabwe today? It kind of felt like it:

But first, the scoreboard:

Dow: +222
NASDAQ: +35
S&P 500: +23

And now, the top stories:

Well, obviously "today" started yesterday at 2:15 PM ET when the Fed announced its quantitative easing initiative. What's funny is that it didn't actually move the markets all that much (after some initial chaotic trading).

But stocks surged higher in Japan last night, and that set the tone for a monster global "risk-on" rally around the world. China had a monster night as well.

Of course, "risk-on" is codeword for "dump the dollar and buy everything else in sight" so there were huge rallies in Treasuries, precious metals (new highs in gold and silver!) industrial commodities, agricultural commodities, and of course stocks.

Notably weak: PIIGS debt. Spreads are blowing out wildly in Ireland and Greece, though the effect on the euro really is almost non-existent. After all, the euro isn't the dollar, so it is something to be held. Also, there were riots and bombs around Athens all day, but again, nobody cared.

In the US, the big macro data of the morning was the weekly jobs report which jumped and was worse than expectations.

Did we mention that gold surged? Yes, we did, but it's worth mentioning again. It's above $1390.

As for stocks, well, they surged all day, ending right near their highs. And look, Bernanke literally said last night that higher stock prices were part of his goal, so if you're betting against stocks, you're betting against the guy with the biggest long-only fund in the world.

The bottom line: Everyone is terrified by the severity of the everything-but-the-dollar lately. Hopefully Ben Bernanke knows what he's doing.