The S&P 500 has risen to just under the 38% retracement point from the March lows. Most of the Bank stocks have risen much more spectacularly, sometime 200% or more, and this is most of what gave the S&P it's bounce. These bank stocks, and the rally they have created, are given as examples of new growth in the economy. These next two links will discredit that assumption:
http://www.howestreet.com/articles/index.php?article_id=10272
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/27/goldman-sachs-gambling-wi_n_245566.html
Basically, Goldman Sachs and the other megabanks are making all of their money by trading, instead of making money by traditional banking. They are using advanced algorithms and massive computer power to grab a few cents from each other on each trade, and the number of trades per day is in the range of about a billion or so. They might make or lose 100 million dollars a day, in this way. Each firm is in an "arms race" with it's competitors in a bizarre science fiction sort of end game. Green Shoots? No, more like a macabre game to the death by desperately programmed robots.... Keep in mind, that it was recently revealed that 50-75% of all trading volume on the NYSE is program trading (robots). Humans are getting squeezed out.
I feel real sorry for Goldman's Computer guys. You know they are under relentless pressure daily to improve the Algorithms and make the hardware ever faster. I have read they make the money they make in millisecond trades.... Like I said, this is a science fiction ending to Capitalism, where one megabank will finally drive it's competitors into the dust with ever better firepower, then the trillions in Derivative bets go off, and then the Financial system finally winks out... Then civilization kinda winks out too, if you can call what we are, a civilization...
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