evening wrap, august 19
A tri-lateral meeting in Budapest…sometime in the 20th century.
Karoline Leavitt, one of the most articulate and feisty White House press secretaries in memory, held a televised press conference carried by major news outlets today, taking numerous questions from White House reporters.
Ms. Leavitt said, “No boots on the ground,” a few times. In other words, America will participate in some sort of security assistance, but there will be no U.S. military involvement on the ground. The U.S. might contribute to securing airspace over Ukraine, precluding Russia from using drones and missiles. “Contribute” would mean any assistance that does not wear boots, in my opinion.
The line of contact, currently noted in the map below, is expected to be the line of demarcation when terms are agreed. The implications of fixing territorial borders where they are now seem fairly obvious to me. Putin is in complete control of 76% to 99% of the areas Zelenskyy (Europe) did not want to concede. The lower peninsula is moot because Putin is landlocked which is sort of like paying taxes on a vacant lot you own that the city won’t let you develop.
Zelenskyy and Putin have agreed to meet. Trump has proposed that a bilateral meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin would precede a trilateral meeting involving himself, Zelenskyy, and Putin. No venue has been decided.
In the markets
Stocks
After nearly a week of unchanged low-volume trading, NDX and S&P futures fell on falling open interest and rising volume today. The Dow was relatively strong.
NVDA fell 3.25%. META and MSFT fell 2%. The rest of the big-cap names were all red in similar numbers. What is important is not the magnitude of losses; it is that they are down following a prolonged narrow range.
As usual… a few lines on gold slippin’ away today, the dollar a little more than bid, oil developing cautiously down (this is not a done deal yet), bitcoin takes a knee, and the margin clerks don’t care… in the vibe.
