Stock Market Manipulation continues...

Every day CNBC parades around mutual fund managers with their laundry list of stocks to buy and despite the economic-atomic mushroom cloud in the background, it is always a good time to "invest" in the equity market. The U.S. equity market is no longer an investment vehicle evidenced by the fact that Cheetos eating Red Bull drinking algorithmic gamers control 60+ percent of the daily trading volume and reality remains irrelevant as trading the U.S. equity market is a video game controlled by a couple handfuls of High Frequency Traders.

Grandpa sliced and diced the Standard and Poor's 500 activity since June 1, 2010. Judge for yourself on the "investment grade" of what used to be a market:

Standard and Poor's 500 activity from June 1, 2010 through July 9, 2010
28 total trading days
Closed 5/28/10 at 1,089.41
Closed 7/9/10 at 1,077.96 (down 11.45)
5 out of 28 trading days were up 10 or more points
7 out of 28 trading days were down 10 or more points
12 out of 28 days had 5+ billion shares traded
     * 5 were up (ave. 5.188 billion shares)
     * 7 were down days (ave. 5.350 billion shares)
4 out of 28 days had 6+ billion shares traded
     * 1 day was positive
     * 3 days were negative
13 out of 28 days were net positive (ave. 4.768 billion shares)
15 out of 28 days were net negative (ave. 5.080 billion shares)

Bottom line...higher volume days are net selling days while the more easily manipulated lower volume days are net buying days. The 13 net buying days during the 28 day trading period averaged 322,000,000 less shares than the net selling days.

The gamers love volitility and the prior 28 days afforded the manipulators volitility nirvana.
14 of 28 days had an intraday high-low range exceeding 20 points (50%)
3 of 28 days had an intraday high-low range in excess of 30 points (11%)
23 of 28 days had an intraday high-low range in excess of 12 points (82%)

During this same 28 day  trading period, the following fundamental economic data missed "consensus" estimates...in other words, the core economic condition is not nearly as strong as the Kool-aid guzzling CNBC pundits nor the Kool-aid IV drip crack economic team of Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Christina Romer spew.

Swing and a Miss:
ISM Index
Intial Jobless Claims
Factory Orders
Non-farm Payrolls
Retail Sales
Housing Starts
Building Permits
LeadingIndicators
Philadelphia Fed Index
Existing Home Sales
New Home Sales
GDP 1st Quarter
Pending Home Sales