Pisa falls

market vibes

October 28 … ) 

“The best thing for low prices is low prices.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations 1776; an anonymous market adage paraphrasing his invisible hand theory.  

In the News  

Trump rallied to a packed house at Madison Square Garden in NY yesterday. I shall eschew with prejudice any temptation to opine on the political impact of his rallies. I will say his commitment to American jobs struck me as antithetical to the Federal Reserve’s desire to regulate employment. If Trump gets in the Fed’s interest rate policy is toast. I have also noticed an obvious omission in Trump’s rhetoric: he never mentions the stock market, ever. He couldn’t shut up about it in 2016 and 2020…Read into that what you will.  

In other financial news, everything I read about stocks from savvy observers is uniformly benign and bullish. Not if they go up, that is a given. It’s just how fast and how much they go up, regardless of who wins. No bears exist in today’s market for stocks... except fools and kooks.  

In the markets 

Metals are lower in quiet trading. The dollar is steady at ionospheric levels and interest rates are down a bit. Financial markets were sharply lower in Asia due to the failure of a coalition supporting the ruling LDP party in Japan to win a majority. If a reversal unfolds this week, it could be a top for the dollar.  A straw doesn’t need weight. The bale already has enough.  

Oil is down almost 6% this morning on what might be described as a “pillow fight” between Israel and Iran. I saw a post on telegram yesterday that the IDF was in retreat from Lebanon due to heavy losses.  

Israel cannot throw men at ground war like McClellan at Antietam for a strategic victory while losing many thousands more in killed and wounded. In fact, if Israel is losing this war, which it is beginning to seem both militarily and politically, they have nothing left to survive except Nukes. More on that in a minute. The markets are speaking. Let’s listen in.