There is a market on close imbalance of $315 million to the sell side. 

Thanks for reading my Diary today and all of the week. I hope it was value added. I will be out Friday but you will be in the capable hands of Bret Jensen.

 Enjoy your evening and the weekend.

I saw Syngenta's (SYT)  shares spike a split second before the Bloomberg headline (that a sweetened Monsanto (MON) bid could come as early as next week). 

This means the HFT have both faster feeds to the news wires and faster reaction time (right or wrong, they get the trade off quicker). 

Separately, my Trade of the Week, Market Vectors Agriculturebusiness ETF (MOO), has moved from this morning's lows to the day's high just now.

Google  (GOOGL) announced today a photos app that will offer support for storing unlimited photos (up to 16-megapixel) and videos (up to 1080p) in the cloud. The best thing is that it's all free to the user. 

The app is available to all users starting today -- on Android, iOS and the web.

 The keywords here are "unlimited: and "free."

 Look out Apple (AAPL).

I added to Twitter at $36.95 this afternoon. 

* I previously compared TWTR to SnapChat's metrics  this morning.

* CNBC reports that TWTR's CEO avoided questions about his longevity at the company at a conference today.

Question: "What is the worst case scenario for the economy if home prices come down? Some say it could even cause a recession." -- Maria Bartiromo, CNBC

Answer:  " I don't buy your premise. It is a pretty unlikely possibility as we have never had home prices decline on a nationwide basis.  I don't think it will drive the economy far from its full employment path."  -- Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors 

Former Fed Chair on the housing market and the economy back in July, 2005.

 Enough said, and I rest my case!

Peter Boockvar on the 7-year auction:

The 7-year note auction was decent as the yield of 1.888% was a touch below the when issued. The bid to cover of 2.49 was right in line with the 12-month average and direct and indirect bidders took a combined 66% of the auction, about in line with the 1-year average of 64%.

Bottom line, the 7-year auction took place at the highest yield since an auction back in December, and the demand was ok as a result. The 7-year yield did touch 2% last week.

In trying to glean some message from the results, there wasn't much of any. As I stated yesterday, the yield curve now seems to be gyrating between tightening on the long end when participants think the Fed will drag their feet with the first rate hike, and flattening on hints that they might not wait much longer.

I believe the last two core CPI figures and the first quarter ECI data were inflection points. On Monday, we see the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, the PCE, and it will be one to watch becauseit has a higher medical care component than CPI (and CPI has a higher rent component) and medical care costs spiked in last week's CPI.

Mid-day musings from Sir Arthur Cashin (and my takes):

Morning plunge likely triggered by collapse of Transports to a low lower than Tuesday.  Trying to regroup. (I posted on the Transports' breakdown recently)

Run rate at 12:15 projects to an NYSE final volume of 670/750 on par with yesterday. (Another day of low volume -- wait until tomorrow and the rest of the summer Fridays!) 

Google (GOOGL)Keynote unveils next Android:

From Sir Arthur Cashin:

Market moves erratically in light volume. Some tried to attribute the post-opening down-spike to IMF comments on Greece but there was no corroborating moves in the dollar and treasuries.

WTI dipped below $57 as we suggested yesterday but bounced back a little on 11:00 a.m. inventory data.

We will be going radio silent at 1:30 today.

Twitter (TWTR) is trading better today, though I don't really have a good reason.

That said, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel appeared on CNBC this week and I learned that Snapchat's (100 million users) private-equity value exceeds $15 billion.

By contrast, Twitter (with approximately 300 million users) has a market cap of $24 billion, which on the surface doesn't make sense on a comparative basis.

• I shorted small in SPY and QQQ.
• I added to longs of Ford (F), General Motors (GM), Radian (RDN) and a few closed-end municipal bond funds.

I wanted to continue to update my regional-bank portfolio. Next up is BB&T Corp. (BBT).

Based in North Carolina, BB&T is a large bank ($190 billion in assets) with a footprint in 13 Southern and Mid-Atlantic states. Unlike some of my other regional-bank holdings, its market capitalization is also large ($29 billion) and its stock trades actively (3 million shares a day).

BB&T's most recent acquisition of BankAtlantic continues to round out the company's broad network, which currently represents America's fifth-largest bank-branch system.

Recent Results

First-quarter results missed expectations, principally due to a sizeable drop in net interest spreads (the bank is asset-sensitive). Non-interest income showed healthy gains. Other positives:

• BBT provides bank exposure to a relatively strong geography that's growing in excess of the overall U.S. growth rate.
• Second-quarter profits should rebound from a disappointing first-quarter report, with fee income rising, credit improving, good expense control and an improving loan picture.
• The bank's projected 2015 return on assets (1.18%) and return on tangible capital (14.6%) exceed most large regional banks' figures.
• BBT is among the more asset-sensitive banks, profiting from an imbalance of rate-sensitive assets over rate-sensitive liabilities. (The bank's most recent 10Q quantifies the benefit of higher interest rates.)
• BBT trades at 13x compared to its mid-2000s 15x to 16x multiple.  The shares have flatlined over the last year.
• BBT pays a $1.08-a-share dividend, which I see rising to close to $1.20 next year.
• Secular EPS growth is estimated at 10%.

My 12-month price target is $45/share or +11% return.

General Motors (GM) might be the most-hated long in our comments section.

That said, Morgan Stanley upgraded GM from Underweight to Equal Weight this morning, based on its view that activists could force the company into more-aggressive strategic steps.

The market is unpredictable and trendless now. From my perch, those who say otherwise are lying or trying to sell you something.

While I view reward vs. risk as generally unattractive, I could be wrong. As I mentioned in today's opener, I have too much respect for my and my investors' capital to take much risk in either direction (long or short).

As a consequence, I plan to continue for now at plus or minus "market neutral" in these uncertain investment times.

My long-term investing ideas (with a timeframe of years, not weeks) will continue to be a part of my Best Ideas list. These ideas will continue to be formed by what I like to think is rigorous fundamental analysis, coupled at times (like with MOO, this week's Trade of the Week) with supportive technical observations.

My short-term trading ideas, including the Trade of the Week, are more commonly bottom-up ones that are also associated with fundamental analysis but more-heavily dependent on technical considerations and/or mean regression.

For now, the latter strategy -- short-term trading -- will likely continue to trump buy-and-hold ideas as I "hit and run."

"I don't know."

-- Jeff Spicoli (played by Sean Penn), Fast Times at Ridgemont High

We need more Jeff Spicolis in the investment business -- people who are unsure of themselves and can say: "I don't know!"

Yesterday, I came back from some research meetings and found the S&P 500 up by about 20 handles, the polar opposite of the prior day's 20-handle fall.

I tuned into the business shows for a market recap, but was amused by how many self-assured market observers "knew" -- after the fact -- that Wednesday's reversal would occur.

I wish I was that smart. Although I did cover many of my shorts on Tuesday, I had no clue that the market would recover.

Frankly, as I've repeatedly written, the only certainty in investing is the lack of certainty. It's for that reason (and out of respect for my and my investors' capital) that I've been plus or minus "market neutral" for months now. There are simply too many possible adverse economic and market outcomes -- which makes, for me, an unattractive reward-vs.-risk equation.

I see this self-confidence of "after-the-fact" analysis all of the time in the business media, on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere.

My advice has been constant -- avoid those who are self-confident of view and who provide ready explanations to daily market moves.

Why? Because 1) they probably aren't managing significant amounts of money (and in some cases don't have any assets at risk at all), 2) their observations are almost always "after the fact," 3) they explain the turnaround on variables that are just plain dumb (often simply making stuff up), 4) they're probably trying to sell you something instead of providing value-added investment input, and 5) they never say "I don't know."

The investment world and the media that cover it demand endless opinions that most people have limited information on. I describe this as being 3-miles wide and 1-inch deep. Sometimes the respondents just make answers up. Other times the questions and answers are simply scripted in advance and the rapid-fire responses are mistaken for thoughtful and deep analysis. (Which they're not.)

My pet peeve is the singular question that's routinely asked of business TV's "talking heads" as they parade before the media 3:45 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. every day (and again in premarket conversations the following morning). They're always asked the same inane question: "Why did the market do what it did today?"

In a market that's without memory from day to day (and that often ends the session based on the last program standing), that's an impossible question to answer. It also underscores the simple-minded attitude of the questioner, who -- instead of asking probing questions -- asks lame, simplistic and standard ones.    

The market's wild and uncorrelated swings so far this year have elicited numerous self-confident (and inane) responses about the causality between news and prices. They're irrelevant and inaccurate because this market has been trendless.

We do see rare expressions of truthfulness, but they're few and far between. The last one I can remember was from my friend Josh "Downtown" Brown of Ritholtz Wealth Management, who answered a question on CNBC's Fast Money earlier this year with the words: "I don't know."

I guarantee that you won't hear that very often from TV guests, as many believe they wouldn't seem smart enough if they were honest with us. Instead, most simply make up stuff. Knowing the likelihood of the question, they have their talking points all summed up before they appear. Many even underscore their reasons behind a market's daily move with such confidence that even I believe them at times.

I handle lots of questions every day in the comments section of my diary, and I can guarantee you that I'll say "I don't know" if I don't know the answer to something.

Why aren't there more talking heads like Fast Times' Jeff Spicoli, who's brutally honest when he says "I don't know" in response to why he's constantly late to class?

The fact is that snark and made-up opinion far too often envelop the business media in place of facts and figures.

Equally infuriating is the confidence shown in delivery of said snark. Sometimes the reason for this is out of necessity, as media appearances are typically brief. Nevertheless, in a world characterized by an absence of certainty and an interrelated and a complicated market mosaic, too many TV guests attach self-confident reasons to randomness.

In summary, I would characterize a lot of the pabulum in the business media as instantaneous entertainment rather than rigorous analysis.

Of course, there are exceptions. Consider the preparation that Jim "El Capitan" Cramer goes through when he interviews a corporate executive on CNBC's Mad Money. Another example is CNBC's Squawk Box with Joe Kernen, Becky Quick and Andrew Ross Sorkin, which provides a guest host with one to three hours to do a deeper dive into analysis. Or Bloomberg TV's Market Surveillance, where Tom Keene shares the spotlight with an interviewee for almost a half an hour, digging into the analysis that forms the foundation of the guest's views.

The truth is that the future is often not predictable, and not every move in the markets is explainable -- although far too many observers attach a reason for every wiggle and move.

To some, the projection of confidence is seen as a validation of an intense and rigorous decision-making process. But increasingly, many are fooled by abbreviated, simplistic explanations and conclusions -- even though more often than not, the snark is shown to be wrong in short order.

In a rising market that has many people feeling uber-smart, there are too many Good Will Huntings (i.e., geniuses) and not enough Jeff Spicolis who'll say "I don't know."

Why was the market down on Tuesday, up on Wednesday and down in premarket trading today?

Honest answer: I don't know.

The Avago/Broadcom deal is a bubble.

It's a bubble of cheap money and high cash-flow-multiple valuations (Avago 21x EV/EBITDA and Broadcom 19x EV/EBITDA).

The Gospel According to Peter Boockvar:

"Chinese stocks were slammed overnight with the Shanghai index lower by 6.5%, the H share index in Hong Kong lower by 3.5% and the Hang Seng was down by 2.2%. Multiple brokerage firms this week raised margin requirements and with a massive build up in margin debt over the past few months that was the only excuse needed for the sharp selloff. Also impacting stocks was the PBOC took some cash out of the banking system via repos implying that they are not looking to further increase liquidity any time soon. The collateral impact on other Asian stock markets was somewhat muted as while stocks sold off in India, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia, the declines were all less than .50% and Taiwan and South Korea had modest gains. The Nikkei was also higher for the 10th straight day, the longest winning streak since 1988 on the weak yen.

With respect to the yen and the last leg of the multi year decline over the past few weeks, overnight Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary expressed some reservations by saying "as agreed by the G20, sudden moves in FX markets are undesirable and for the latest moves, we'd like to continue to monitor carefully." As a weaker yen is official government policy, first engineered by the BoJ and now joined by huge pension fund money piling into assets out of the country, all he wants is a controlled decline, not something that becomes unhinged. Data wise, the recovery in Japan remains very uneven. Retail sales in April, the 1st month of the new quarter, rose just .4% m/o/m, well less than expectations of up 1.1%. The y/o/y gain was 5% but April 2014 was the first month with the VAT hike so the comparison was easy. If the BoJ is anywhere successful in generating higher inflation retail sales will get even weaker.

In Europe, the euro zone economic confidence figure for May was unchanged at 103.8, a touch above the estimate of 103.5 and just shy of the best level since July '11. More progress is needed though as the index was 109 in early 2011 before Greece hit the fan and the pre recession level was 113 in May '07. Lower prices helped Spain report a 4% y/o/y retail sales gain in April, above the estimate of 2.6% and it's the 2nd best y/o/y rise since 2007. Italian business confidence in May fell .5 pt off the highest level since May '11 and was 1 pt below the estimate. Due to the weakness in the euro, German import prices in April rose .6% m/o/m after a 1% rise in March. The y/o/y decline of .6% was the least since December '12. Wanting and having a weak currency is not a free lunch.

As Greece has a June 5th debt payment to the IMF, a government spokesman today said Greece is shooting for a deal with the troika bySunday. Germany on the other hand is not so sure as the German Finance Minister late yesterday said "we always hear positive news coming out of Greece, which is good. However, we haven't gotten much further in substance in the negotiations between the three institutions and the Greek government." An EC spokeswoman today said "talks will continue in the coming days and further progress is needed."

At least from the perspective of the individual investor as measured by AAII, they remain very confused but a bit less so as the Neutral read fell to 47.9 from 49.8 which was the highest since 2003. Bulls were 27 vs 25.2 while Bears were little changed at 25."

A $500 million speculative home like the one currently under construction in Los Angeles isn't the sort of thing that we see at the bottom of a cycle. Or even at the middle of a cycle. It's only the sort of thing we see at the end of a cycle.

This home (which probably has a $20 million-a-year carrying cost for its developer) will probably be a museum one day, like all of the mansions in Newport, R.I.  

The takeaway for investors: Nearly every time our society gets to this ridiculous (and excessive) point in time, things always seem to break.