The quote du jour comes from Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, who seems to share Bespoke’s concern that listening to the rating agencies is like making investment decisions based on last month's newspaper.

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, he said: “I served on corporate boards. The way rating agencies worked is that they were paid by the people they rated. I saw that from the inside.”

He said he also saw this “inherent conflict of interest” as a fund manager. “I never paid attention to the rating agencies. If you relied on them you got ... you know. You did your own analysis. What is clear is that rating agencies always change something after it is obvious to everyone else. That’s why we never relied on them.”

In other news, during his first visit to Beijing as Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner went out of his way to assure the Chinese that their large holdings of US dollar assets were secure, and that the US administration remained committed to a strong dollar and keeping inflation under control. Although the Chinese leaders didn't again raise their unease that the US will inflate away its mounting debt, there were “plenty of other signs of concern," including tough questioning at Peking University, reported the Financial Times.

Regarding the outlook for the Chinese renminbi versus the US dollar, James Grant (Grant's Interest Rate Observer) said:

“We are bearish on the renminbi. On the other hand, we are also bearish on the US dollar, euro, pound, Swiss franc, and Zimbabwean dollar. We hate them all, with appropriate analytical nuances. Show us a monetary asset whose value is not subject to governmental debasement, and we will show you a Krugerrand.”

According to MarketWatch, President Barack Obama plans to announce on Monday how his administration is speeding up implementation of his $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

Oh yes, General Motors (GRM) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and was duly replaced as one of the 30 constituents of the Dow, whereas a judge cleared the path for Chrysler to exit bankruptcy by approving the sale of the bulk of the automaker's assets to a new entity to be managed by Italy's Fiat.

Focusing on the US stock markets, the most recent Investors Intelligence sentiment report shows that 42.5% of portfolio managers are now bullish on equities versus 25.3% that are bearish. While the high level of bullish sentiment seems to indicate an overbought market, the spread of 17.2% between bulls and bears is still below the 10-year average of 19%, according to Bespoke.

Interestingly, Barclays Capital issued a report on Monday showing that only 17.5% of the 605 global investors interviewed for its quarterly FX investor sentiment survey thought risky assets have further to rise. “Just 4.5% of respondents believe the trajectory of the global economy over the next year will be ‘V-shaped’ - indicating weakness followed by a sharp recovery,” reported the Financial Times.

An analysis of the moving averages of the major US indices shows all the indices (with the exception of the Dow Jones Transport Index) above their 50- and 200-day moving averages and May 8 highs. The S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000 have also now surpassed their early January peaks.