If we had to listen to the House interrogate Greenspan every day I don't think the market would ever go up. I found it very depressing, trade deficits, budget deficits, trillions for social security and medicare, a problem several times in magnitude of social security. The sky was falling and the market can't like that. The saving grace of course, is that it won't happen tommorrow. No doubt we will forget about it soon and start worrying about the next earnings report.

By now, everyone knows that Japan is in recession, for the last 3 quarters no less, after they revised their data. Not to worry though, they announced today they are not revising their forecast showing a pickup in February. The same confidence is proffered by the Germans who seem confident growth will pickup next quarter. Where this confidence comes from I don't know. The trends in place look strong to me. Japan did say they are poised to stop the appreciation of the Yen in case China revalues. Now that is the kind of tlalk gold likes

The euro, gold and the stocks had a nice move higher today, overall they've had a nice bounce from being oversold. The way I read the charts they are now close to resistance and will probably mill around here for awhile. If they continue to move sharply higher I think they will be telling us there is trouble ahead.

Greenspan said little about bonds today, but they still fell modestly 19/32 iin the 30yr. The one thing that really bothered me about his testimony, was his answer regarding the large foreign ownership of our securities. His response, that foreign purchases reflect the fact that we are the safest and most liquid securities, was an answer of omission. He knows that China and Japan have all those dollars with which to purchase securities because they sell us more than we sell them and they want to keep it that way. If they were to sell those dollars to invest in gilts or eurobonds that would weaken the dollar further eventually putting more pressure on their currencies, which is exactly what their trying to prevent. Private fund flows are receding, which he knows. Saying that official flow are increasing because we are such a great place to invest is somewhat disingenous.