Looks like the market will open to the downside this morning – about 50 points worth on the Dow and even more – percentage-wise – on the NASDAQ.
There are plenty of explanations for why this might happen, not the least of which is people selling a bit now to pay some of the taxes that will be due on gains booked this year. Or, it could just be that the fragile state of the economy is becoming apparent to a few people besides us.
That said, Richmond and Dallas Feds will be out with forecast reports as the morning wears on. Plus, the usual last-Tuesday Housing data will come out tomorrow, presumably so Santa’s helpers can find their way back to less seasonal work…
(Continues below)
On the macro picture, Bitcoin has continued to hang out in the $15,000 region. An early check showed it $15,400, but no telling where it will go from here.
There have been some stories about how a possible Bitcoin implosion could “spill over” into Wall Street, but time will tell (or not) on that score.
Still, Politics as Usual
With the economy posting pretty good gains, and with a tax cut due to show itself on pay checks shortly, you might be tempted to believe the Trump presidency was making it’s way out of the woods.
But, while there are stories around going into the possible problems for the Mueller/DoJ handling of the Clinton email story, the rest of the media coverage of Trump has been lukewarm at best.
To be sure, there are even some media outlet promoting the idea that Democrats are sure to stage a comeback in the 2018 House elections.
Here I thought the turkey was served yesterday. Turns out, we will see flocks of them again next fall – all (and both parties) promising more than they can (or will) deliver.
The more things change, the more they…
Brother Alexei’s Footwork
While the US is trying to figure out the (democrat) allegations of Russian political influence efforts, we see a marvelous opportunity for “Turn-about’s fair play” in what’s going on in Russia’s upcoming election cycle.
The Russians have barred Alexei Navalny from running against Vlad Putin. So we are reading how the European Union (no fan of Putin’s) is saying they don’t trust Russian elections as a result.
The difficulty, trying to sort all this out, is that the EU already has laid unequivocal claim that Russia should be part of the EU. Putin, naturally, has other plans and believes in Russian autonomy. Russian memories of The Great War still run deep and so is the resulting mistrust of things from Europe.
Meantime, one could be seeing some political refocus efforts in Russian military moves like this one: Russian warships pass close to British waters over Christmas holiday, UK navy says.
Boys will be boys, eh?
Meanwhile, Russia is talking up a 13% income tax rate as one way to lure new business, a move driven by US sanctions biting hard…
When you sit back in the “soft focus” mode, you can see the problem for the do-nothing congress here: On the one hand, they are easily led to “sanction Russia” so it could be seen as a reason why they have been so retarded on the Clinton-Russia relationship. Don’t want to be seen, perhaps, as wanting it “both ways.”
Computers Never Lie
Tell it to this woman: “Woman gets $284 billion electric bill because the world is a cruel, cruel place.
OK, quiet morning till the open…’back for 40-winks before the workweek begins…
G- how come we ain’t heard nuthing about sound/resonance/frequency experiments lately?
I have been wondering if you uncovered anything to do with the cone shaped tools found all over the world around giant ancient structures, including Coral Castle?
Also when conducting your sound experiments are you “tuning” your equipment to your personal frequency, which should be close to the Schuman?Earth frequency of 7.8 hz
As the good book explains Sound is prime creative force, it precedes and or creates light.Curious minds are keenly interested. It should be noted that alot of people experimenting with this subject tend have a history of going off the deep end, take good care.
Bitcoin is related to The Domain Force as you know if you going to have a website you have a domain name.
We have a Bitcoin and it’s like the god sun of the universe and or we could put it into a perspective it’s like a SUN and it’s got a hundred planets which are called the alternate cryptocurrencies and the sun gets charged up when all the alternate cryptocurrencies reduce their charge by giving it to the Sun and the Sun is the Bitcoin so the Bitcoin Rises and Rises and then periodically Bitcoin exchanges back to all the alternate coins and they go throughout the Galaxy Galaxy looking for things to Conquest minerals whatever gold silver and Fiat currencies while they’re doing that the Bitcoin the Sun is reduced with digits of energy which is what keeps it alive .
So as alternate crypto currencies go out with a full tank looking for Conquest to put in their extra storage holds on their crafts and collected and they’re coming back except for the ones who have met their death and don’t come back they’re finished and the ones that do come back they’re depositing their assets that they have collected throughout the Galaxy they’re depositing them at the Bitcoin which is their god son and the cycle goes over and over again. Thus, we have just described how to chart the cycles and workings of Bitcoin and all the subsidiary alternate cryptocurrencies.
Say why is Bitcoin going sideways for instead of going up and down well Bitcoin son and it’s 100 alternative crypto-currencies they’re on vacation just like you Arthur having a good Christmas it won’t be long they’ll be ready to get back to work
Yes Bitcoin will take a Plunge at the first of the year and the other cryptos will take off but near the end of the month of January tell all come home to replenish their Bitcoin son .how will you play it
Mainstream media quotes Prechter/ElliotWave:
“The Nasdaq composite crashed more than 75 percent from its tech bubble peak in 2000 to its low in 2002. Bitcoin’s surge already dwarfs many of the largest financial market bubbles on record, according to Birinyi Associates.
“Manias are expressions of positive social mood,” said Matt Lampert, director of research at the Socionomics Institute. “They require a high degree of confidence, excitement and investor enthusiasm, so they tend to arise later in the trend when social mood is especially elevated.”
“Time and again, extremes in positive social mood infuse investors with a manic optimism that produces speculative booms, followed by busts when the mood turns negative.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/19/bull-market-could-explain-a-mania-like-bitcoin.html
Sold AAPL this morning. News of lower IPhone sales is not healthy for Apple stock..
Those of you with Coast Insider membership, might want to listen to Saturday night’s program featuring the creator of Bitshares explaining why his system is superior to Bitcoins and is replacing it.
Off to school we go this morning.
On the internet that is.
For me the 9th grade Dropout idiot retard I do learn things once in awhile.
I remember once I went to mechanic school to learn about engines in about Automobiles and such and I graduated from that because it was physical tangible..
I went to accounting school I learn to type yeah I can actually type.
I went to welding school yes I can.
I went to electroplating school yes I can electroplate just about anything you want.
I went to air conditioning School I’m not growing a forest but I am growing a lazy porch Garden. why are all the cats and dogs laying around just relaxing and all the chickens are out there doing all the work yeah they’re out there foraging never stopping and we eat them and we eat their eggs we don’t eat dogs and cats at least not this part of the world so what are we learning here
I could not understand the parts of speech adjectives adverbs prepositions exclamatory words conjunctions verb phrases auxiliary verbs pronouns and nouns acting and linking verbs what about the subjects in the predicate the simple subject in the simple predicate compound subjects and compound predicate sentence fragments diagramming the subject and the predicate and then the sentence pattern.
And then the kinds of sentences inverted order and Terror interrogative sentence patterns imperative exclamatory sentence patterns sentences that begin with there and diagramming them then we get to the hounds oh my God.
Then we get to nouns kinds of pronouns well capitalization of proper nouns special use of capital letters the plural forms of nouns and then we get the pronouns like the classifications used as an adjective compound personal pronouns interrogative pronouns pronouns demonstrative pronouns indefinite pronouns relative pronouns pronouns used as adjectives possessive forms of pronouns.
agreement of pronoun with antecedents in gender gender and number indefinite pronouns agreement of pronoun with a compound antecedent agreement of pronouns with collective nouns agreement of pronoun.
Vega antecedents adjective pronoun agreements.
Then we get the compliments of verbs the direct object transitive and intransitive verbs the indirect object diagramming the direct and indirect object linking verbs complement of linking verbs diagramming compliments of linking verbs.
Possessive case of pronouns use of possessive special cases possessive of.
Modifier adjectives modify adverbs principal parts of verbs comprehension goodness.
The tenses of verbs the voice in the mood of birds the agreement of the subject and the verb prepositional phrases the compound sentence the complex in its adjective Clauses adverbial Clauses noun clauses participles gerunds infinitives problems.
Manly get to the harder part the tenses of the verb the verbs voice and mood the agreement of the subject and the verb the prepositional phrases that come from the compound sentence the complex sentence adjective clauses adverbial Clauses noun clauses participles problems in the US split infinitives.
Three-sided character of the infinitive,
Hey that’s me I’m three-sided character of the infinitive wow.
So be it to be
English punctuation in high school so I didn’t graduate
Getting rich in real estate is so much easier than becoming an English teacher
Mueller was still in private practice when hillary was under investigation. Mueller didn’t even get involved in DOJ (again) until after Comey was fired. Otherwise please explain ‘Mueller’s handling of the clinton email story’ like how mueller or his team were involved in any way with it.
So conflating mueller’s work with any investigation into hillary I think can be misleading. I see you as playing willing obstructionist for Team Trump.
We need to prevent future election interference in the future. That’s the bottom line. I don’t care where the trail leads. Hang hillary, hang trump, hang them all for all I care.
The special prosecutor has a wide range of responsibilities when looking into Russia allegations. He has chosen NOT to look into the Hillary Uranium One deal and is clearly a partisan. Since Mueller is ONLY after Trump, as we have seen to date, we view him as a partisan along the same line as the NY Times.
Take that hit piece on Trump yesterday: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/23/us/politics/trump-immigration.html As a journalist Rule 1 is “If the source can’t be named, the story doesn’t run…” Too bad the NY Times doesn’t provide journalism at this level.
Meantime, Obama’s off in the background with Organizing For Action – his own party, so it seems: https://www.ofa.us/
Where were you, oh patriot, when you should have been telling us how “Obama’s Campaign Paid $972,000 To Law Firm That Secretly Paid Fusion GPS In 2016”? http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/29/obamas-campaign-gave-972000-law-firm-funneled-money-fusion-gps/
So not so much obstructionist for Team Trump, just trying to keep the Bolsheviks at bay.
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Investigating hillary or uranium aren’t part of the special counsel’s order. Mueller was charged with among things investigating Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election and any links or coordination between Team Trump and the Russians.
Irony, hypocrisy or both that the same groups of people who were complaining that Mueller’s investigation is too broad and shouldn’t get into DJT’s finances, banking or business are now arguing that Mueller’s powers are broad enough to look into hillary and uranium.
Mueller “clearly” a partisan? I don’t buy it. Just look at the guy, he looks like an angry eagle – USMC, purple heart, prosecutor, head of FBI, republican, appointed by a republican. He ain’t no liberal democrat.
Last, the folks who think Mr. Republican G Man is now on the take for the democrats find it unbelievable that a foreign power would want to game our election.
Your column on confirmation bias comes to mind.
A PDF of the special counsel order – https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/appointment-special-counsel
I was under the impression that examining why the president fired Comey (with any attendant issues – like Russia influencing our elections or maybe Trump being beholden to foreign banks) was the reason for getting a special investigation – not uranium deals, or any other ‘stuff’.
If one wants to rehash or investigate the past – it never ends – so how far do you want to go in the past?- one must deal at best with current affairs – the Mueller investigation is current as Trump is now president.
We need to be aware that the Russian government is still trying to affect our elections, and be vigilant!