Wal-Mart CEO:

“I don’t need to tell you that our customer remains challenged…You need not go farther than one of our stores on midnight at the end of the month. And it’s real interesting to watch, about 11 p.m. customers start to come in and shop, fill their grocery basket with basic items – baby formula, milk, bread, eggs – and continue to shop and mill about the store until midnight when government electronic benefits cards get activated, and then the checkout starts and occurs. And our sales for those first few hours on the first of the month are substantially and significantly higher.”

Draw your own conclusions.

Yes, this from zero hedge but I’m making an exception. B of A’s market summary is pretty comprehensive.

BofA’s chief technical research analyst Mary Ann Bartels has released a note in which she demonstrates the bullish and bearish technicals currently in the market (although with the only thing mattering anymore is when and how big any given Fed permanent open market operation will be, we question the utility of technicals even). While Bartels is still holding on the a call for a “deeper equity market correction” while noting the obvious (“The equity market this year has frustrated both the bulls and the bears, and this is likely to continue into year-end, in our view”) she points out that the broader market signals are mixed. She points out that “most short-term indicators have generated a sell signal and Net Tab is not oversold. We still need to break and hold above S&P 500 1150 to invalidate a potential head and shoulders distribution top. A test of the July low (1010) is still not ruled out. A break above1150 would point to a test of the April high of 1220.” Today’s action shows just how hard the market is trying to breach the upside resistance and disprove all the economic fundamentals that unequivocally point to an ongoing and accelerating deterioration in the economy.

Excuse me? “The market is trying”? How about “the administration is trying”? That would be more accurate. $5 billion of pumping into stocks a day from the Fed isn’t chicken feed, y’know.

There have been a few reported cases of mortgage document fraud during foreclosures, where lenders have attempted to repossess properties whose mortgages they do not own. It appears that this is a much bigger problem, and is blowing up. Naked Capitalism has the gory details.

Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage unit told brokers and agents to halt evictions tied to foreclosures on homeowners in 23 states including Florida, Connecticut and New York.

GMAC Mortgage may “need to take corrective action in connection with some foreclosures” in the affected states, according to a two-page memo dated Sept. 17 marked “urgent.”….Brokers were told to immediately stop evictions, cash- for-key transactions and lockouts, according to the document, addressed to GMAC preferred agents.

This is probably much more than just GMAC.

Edit:By the way, the consequences of this are that any loan that was not properly conveyed into the trust has been split from the mortgage. That is, the deed and the note have been separated. This is a permanent deficiency. The buyer of the home therefore has title to the house, and an unsecured debt, or in other words a signature loan for the entire mortgage balance. If he does not pay, the holder of the note (whoever can prove they actually are holding it) can attempt to collect it. The buyer can, in turn, declare bankruptcy, discharging the note. In states where there is a 100% homestead exemption for a primary residence (Florida among others) the buyer gets “free” house. Of course, he still will have a major black mark on his credit report. Too bad.

The NBER announced this morning that the last recession officially ended in June 2009. So the only question is, when will the depression officially begin?

Meanwhile, the Fed continues to pump asset prices – mostly the stock market – by buying short-term government bonds for new cash on almost a daily basis. $5B today, then more on Wednesday and Friday. Pump pump pump, there’s an election coming.

Other than the pumping, the market has been completely somnolent intra-day for months. There was a piece a little while ago in the WSJ about traders taking most of the day off, only coming in to work for the opening and closing hour or so.  I’m reading that the brokerage business is hurting badly as the retail customer has abandoned the market. Meredith Whitney is forecasting big layoffs in the industry as the brokers realize that the HFT boyz have killed the golden goose and she isn’t coming back.

Think the consumer is deleveraging? Only over his dead body.