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Is the Dow really up another 175 points today?

What gives? Maybe this: Reuters is reporting: ECB's Draghi says he will not stop short in money printing.

The European Central Bank will not stop short in rolling out its trillion-euro-plus money printing scheme, its president said on Thursday, playing down fears that quantitative easing could blow price bubbles.

When I was in the military -- ah, the good old days -- our real names were found on official documents, but we had "go-by names" (maybe more on those go-by names later; Velcro was a godsend for many a fighter pilot). It appears Mario Draghi's "go-by name" is Ben.

As in Ben Bernanke. 

By the way, don't forget that China recently announced its own stimulus program: an Apple Watch on every wrist. Okay, part of that last sentence was not entirely accurate, but, yes, Chinese leaders did announce a new round of stimulus.

Apple popped.

The worlds largest company by market cap just got a little bigger. Shares of Apple popped 1% on Thursday after UBS said iPhone sales should continue to smash records. In a new research note, analysts said in the second quarter Apple will sell about 51 million units, that's much more than the consensus Street estimates of 45 million. UBS cited strong demand in China as one of the catalysts behind the gains.

And UBS sees iPhone sales in the June quarter well above the current estimates.

Oil should have been up today on a weakening dollar. But oil was down. Perhaps the dollar strengthened and I missed it. More likely, the "speculators" heard the frackers are coming back to work (there have been three stories in the last three days about EOG saying drillers are ready to go back to work in the shale plays). "Speculators" see more supply coming into an already-over-supplied market.

MDU: breaking up is hard to do. Link here. 

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Re-Posting

I posted this earlier but it was removed by the censors, so I will try again.

Polling data suggests fairly strongly this will be the Democratic Party's PVP ticket in 2016:

• President: Hillary Clinton
• Vice-President: Michelle Obama

Some data points to think about:

• Hillary will win if Jeb is the GOP candidate
• Hillary will have a tough race if anyone other than Jeb is the GOP nominee
• Even in a tough race, Hillary could win under any circumstances -- unless the black vote does not turn out
• Hillary will most assuredly need a huge Black American turnout to win (that's a given)
• An old woman and an old white man ticket won't bring out the black vote
• Michelle simply stumping for Hillary won't bring out the black vote; it's unlikely, in any event that Michelle would stump for Hillary, even if promised a job in the new administration; Hillary has a way of not keeping promises
• A Michelle vice-presidency opens the door for Barack to return as SecState -- yes, it's a huge step down, but he saw how much money the Clintons made doing that
• As SecState, Barack is fresh; Bill Clinton would be in the White House, long in the tooth
• Hillary won't play second fiddle to Michelle on the ticket, so it's the Hillary - P, Michelle - VP ticket or nothing at all
• Hillary-Michelle have a chance to really make history; they would win by a landslide; folks who can't stand Hillary (like my wife) would gladly hold their collective noses and vote for Michelle
• Michelle would be the first VP in a long time that would still be way young enough to run for president in 2020 (by which time Hillary's medical problems will become so obvious she will have to step down -- along with Ms Ginsberg, where they can move into a "memory" unit together) [The closest thing we have to white smoke and a new Pope is when "we" pick a new justice for the Supreme Court.]

I challenge anyone to come up with a "dream ticket" that is more sublime than a Hillary-Michelle ticket. HM: her majesties.

Michelle: be young, be dope, be proud.