FT Alphaville's David Keohane Gazes Upon Analyst's "self-referential vortex of psychologically important thresholds"

I borrowed the vortex line from Mr. Keohane's confrère Cardiff Garcia who won a prestigious award with it back in 2012:

Climateer Headline of the Day: Strange Loops Edition

...And here's FT Alphaville:

Rally Monkey gets sucked into the self-referential vortex of psychologically important thresholds

Cue the already-deflating* bubble in a) people pointing out that the Dow hit 13,000, then b) people who point out the irrelevance of the Dow’s crossing 13,000, followed by c) people who get annoyed at people who point out the irrelevance of the Dow’s crossing 13,000 because it’s so bleeding obvious, which of course then leads to — oh hell, never mind....MORE

Okay, it doesn't quite fit the instant case but I like it.
I illustrated  that post with a print that does fit:

 

Drawing Hands M.C. Escher, 1948

Here's today's story:

Once again in circularity and potential leading indicators

That chart of news sentiment (based on Bloomberg articles) is from Citi, who add that “the price action in some markets suggests that the exuberance may now be fading, even reversing somewhat. The US dollar and 10yr USD Treasury yields peaked in mid-December, while equity markets have lost their upside momentum.”

Or: “We maintain a reasonably constructive outlook on both global growth and the investing environment over the next 12-18 months but we do not think that now is the right time to be chasing risk.”

Which is fair enough — USD is getting pushed back this morning too with the Trump inauguration being the proximate cause. Here’s a 5 day and 1 year chart of DXY and here’s SocGen’s Kit Juckes’ note header: “No help for dollar bulls from President Trump”...MORE