The odds of the Fed actually changing rates next week are low.   But that doesn’t mean the markets won’t be doing some hedging just in case. While doing so, we have our eyes on a bank going banko and wonder how next weekend employment reports will sail, as well. Mainly, we’re hoping for a quiet … Read More

You may not be familiar with Daniel Handler’s series of children’s books, but the Lemony Snicket series, if in title and nothing else, does have a certain foreboding to it in finance.  Let me explain with a starting Wiki: “Lemony Snicket is the pen name of American author Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970). Handler has published various children’s books under … Read More

While the usual, run-of-the-mill, headlines offer little grist or solace, the financial calendar is filling up quickly.  War among the poseurs. Before jumping into the GDP numbers, a quick follow-up for our Peoplenomics subscribers.  As we were projecting in the ChartPack Wednesday, the Wave ((4)) rally may be over as the futures today hold up … Read More

Something more useful than market charts and insights today,  We do a once-over on pain.  The kind of aches and such that come with aging.  Because, well, with any luck anyway, we’re all going to do lots of aging. If the world doesn’t blow up first. First, though, a few of the more interesting (and … Read More

Our national fascination with the macabre continues.  While, sometimes like an old man, I wonder if I’m the only one who ever watched TV legal shows.  You know the genre, right?  Spans from Perry Mason to Suits.  And while the material was OK, at least you could pick up a few high-minded notions about law … Read More

No, I won’t say “Told you so!” But, um…yeah, the Future that came over the weekend was not the hyperly prognosticated one, was it? Life on the Ol Rock seems intact; congress has joined with the war-gamblers, spending is plain nuts, and the great “halving” of BTC hasn’t resulted in the world’s first quintillionaire.  Which, … Read More

We have word today that the present general human model of death and the Afterlife may be seriously antiquated.  It’s a notion that had never struck me until one of my rare, but highly educational “Lucid Dreams” overnight. Without telling all, let’s just say that the present model of “What happens when people die” lacks … Read More

The situation in the Middle East is “game on” again – and (surprisingly) Israel did not wait until the Friday close of markets to nick Iran, again.  Instead, they launched earlier than expected. US Israel missile strike claims as Iran fires air defense at two sites after drones spotted. Notice in a second version of … Read More

We can begin this morning, to paraphrase reader Andy, “running right on schedule.”  Today, we are focused on the “musical constructs” of world-ending war.  It’s graceful, interesting, intellectually challenging. And – oh! – terminal.  But don’t go getting the blues because in a cosmic sense the Blues is playing lead in human affairs lately, in case you … Read More

What humans have been doing so far has not worked out especially well.  Sure, we have 8-billion people.  Which – and this is a hard one to conceptualize – is 40-times larger than it was in Jesus’ time; people numbered only 200-million back then. Even so, mankind was even then territorial, fighting wars, and using … Read More

Honestly, not too much to look at in the news flows overnight.  If you like Trump-bashing, plenty of filler and time-sinks out there. But, if like us, you’re looking for indicators of Future, y’ain’t gonna find ’em in courtroom filled with political psychodramas. Housing Starts Came in stronger than we expected,.. M’eh. Future’s just turned … Read More

We’re going to talk about “Hearing the Music of Life” today. Even a wordsmith (maybe, someday) learns a new word now and then.  Today it was that an acceptable plural of the (singular) tempo is “tempi.”  Arizona may complain. We don’t talk too much about “tempi” (tempos) to the flow of news.  A useful way … Read More

After an absence of several weeks, and after Goofle said (by nicely ignoring our Ultra-Make site for ads) we have elected to bring ShopTalk Sunday back home.  So, um, here we is. Just in Time for Bug Season If you live “up north” the bugs are not out yet. But here in the Sun (and bring … Read More