Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Options Day

by

“Hey Rock, wanna see me pull a rabbit outta my hat?”

Everything you need to know about finance today from an ancient but very adult cartoon series.  Even had a Fearless Leader in it…and a socialist at that.

The Battle to Save America is not over yet, I’m pleased to report.  Although a modest rally in stocks today ain’t even the tip of the iceberg.

Why is there reason for optimism until sometime in 2017 and maybe into 2018?

I’d like to thank George Noory for asking the fine questions last night.

In terms of optimism – and why I expect the market to rally nicely to new highs into late summer – the reasons are pretty clear if you know where to look.

For one, the Fed has been goosing the M1 – and we will be anxious to see if the annualized rate of increase basis the three month rolling average tops 12% when the data comes out after the close. Simply: When Fed policy is “loose” some of the money is bound to end up chasing stock prices.

Second reason, then?

Well, when the long-term decline in bond yield (which began in 1985 or so) is over, rising bond rates will decrease the net present value of the underlying. The hot money will become less interested in stodgy old bonds, but on the flip side, stocks which are somewhat akin to hard assets (they represent some assets as shares of a company, eh?) will begin to look more attractive and up will go stocks.

Maybe not as high as when the Fed raised three times ahead of the 1929 market blow off. It should be clear the Fed is trying to pass through the next three to five years in a more even state of affairs. Still, a blow off up in stocks is a possibility.

When you step back from the white board a ways (and stop sniffing the marker, please…my turn…) what comes into focus is that stocks look pretty good compared to real estate and other competing asset classes, too.

Reason being? Liquidity. When I am at my wild-eyed best in stock trading, I am never more than 3- days (to settlement) from being able to get my money out of harms way. Not so in other assets. Few nibbles on our airplane ad, even though the price is down, so consumers are not flush with cash or willing to take on big personal debt for much. There’s still a good bit of sitting on the wallet..and when this changes, look out above (not below).

More reasons?

Sure, look at politics.

Ask any Hillary backer and they will assure you she is the cat’s meow and the vote is a formality. Bernie supporters and also confident the convention can be opened. And Trump supporters? Well, they just KNOW the Donald will be the next president.

Eric Hofer, a longshoreman/philosopher from years back wrote a dandy little book called “The True Believer.”

One of his best quotes in the book went to the idea “Show me a true Nazi and I will show you a true Communist.”

People are like that – facts be danged – they want to be True Believers.

That’s why you can talk to a Cruz supporter. Its why the term “climate denier” was invented, that and social(ist) media. It’s all a control trip, it’s all a popularity contest, because the power aggregating freaks in office live and breathe this power stuff and the way to get more is to drum up more believers and followers.

In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t do much following around here. Whether that’s good, bad, or unAmerican, I suppose could be argued. But an open mind and underwear do have something in common: It’s good to change both, once in a while, as the facts change.

This morning, the market looks to bump up 50, or so, at the open, but we still half expect a decline to the bottom of the trend channel – but more for our www.peoplenomics.com subscribers tomorrow.

At some point in here, we will agree that the large wave III (from the 2011-12 lows) ended and we are finishing off IV, and that should pave the way to short-term Nirvana. But it will be like a cheap drug high.

Come the 2017-2018 area the reality of our world will come into view.

Cell phones are replacing who rooms in homes. Who even needs a television, if you have a streaming account? No den for reading, that’s what the Kindle apps are for. No sound room for the audiophiles. MP3s and ear buds.

All of which is why my son, who in addition to being an HIV/AIDS researcher at the big university in Seattle, loves the new apartment complex he’s the resident manager for in Seattle: The world has changed. If you can’t live in 400 square feet, you haven’t moved into the new world.

Still, while the housing footprints will shrink, so will reserves of pension funds. The Robots are coming to take all our jobs. And as one article noted recently, the scifi crowd though AI would make computers really smart and they would be the threat. Yet as I explained earlier this week, you just need an addictive time-wasting database (social media) and the crack-headed monkeys will press buttons all day and will be the zombies the comics warned us about.

Seriously (from the I shit you not department) Go out to any good foody joint this weekend and watch people sitting across the table from one another texting instead of being present in the here and now.

Those, dear reader, are the Zombies. They are here and they support all three major OS’s.

And they all have FB accounts.

Very short term: a week or three, maybe into June Fed and ECB decisions, we waffle. Then a summer into fall rally.

But look at how past first years have looked for other presidents.

Bush the second came in January of 2001 and made it to September 11 before the crap hit the fan.

Ditto Obama coming in during 2009: Markets were in freefall for a couple of more months.

Is there any reason to expect a different play this time around? Depends if you’ve been a a whipping cream party already, this morning. (Kiddy note: Look at the propellant in canned whipping cream sometime and think nitrous, right?)

So enjoy “Blessed Friday.”

As those of us with real plans for Life would explain, except most of the planet is Social Zombified: Friday means only two more working days until Monday.

And yes, we are soooo screwed.

Let’s party like it’s 1929, shall we?

The News that Isn’t

We are sad to report the EgyptAir plane has not mysteriously popped back onto radar.

Yes, Gravity has not been repealed, but does the idiotic mainstream have to keep rerunning the same search footage… me?  I’ll be down the hall puking, thanks.

Feds and Fetuses

Now that Oklahoma Legislature passes bill criminalizing abortion, we will be counting the seconds until the runaway central government decides that it’s not a State issue and the Feds will rule.

With Scalia gone from the bench, who’s to stop ‘em?

The Blame Game

You can see how the Social Media Anarchy, digital game of thrones version, is played if you follow this one:

Black Lives Matter Organizer Charles Wade Blames Sex Trafficking Arrest On ‘Conservative Trolls.’

Check it, Charlie:  Black Kids Matter, right yo?

Surprise, surprise…it maybe wasn’t about race, after all. Maybe it was just about acting badly…but we will keep an eye on this and see what the facts offer.

Conservative Trolls are a fact of hyperspace. Cops? A fact of pimping.

But hey, never let a chance to be divisive go by, I always say. Hand me another linguistic Mollytov, wouldja?

I repeat for the hard of thinking: Most of the shit that keeps us from being the United States of America comes from social(ist) media. Mostly the twits don’t grok it. But they weren’t grok-it scientists in the first place.

Well, enough of this common sensical moderate fact-oriented, poll reading logical stuff. I have to rest up for next week’s housing data and another eye appointment Monday.

Have a fine weekend and enjoy all the features of Gomorrah. Plumbing checks optional.  Watch that pillar of salt on the way out.

20 thoughts on “Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Options Day”

  1. Did you happen to read the article about the UN person who admitted these steps to combat “global warning” are not expected to matter a whit? It was admitted it’s all about creating a new global economic system based on so-called “green energy.”
    So Moose and Squirrel seem to have been subjugated not by Boris Badenuff and Natasha, but by the UN globalists and their US cronies.

  2. As far as Bullwinkle goes, you left out a prime predictive character- Natasha Fatale, whom I have always likened to a black widow spider; you know, the kind that kills her mate after.
    Can you recall Vince Foster?

  3. In your fine rant about 400 sq ft apartments, A.I., robots, etc…You failed to mention Virtual Reality…the new push by Google, Facebook. Amazon and others. There is a correlation between smaller living spaces and VR. Your son and the generation of Gen Z ‘s have augmented their reality with Micro devices that limit the need for space. VR is the ultimate micro device to limit space. Live in a 400Sq ft apartment? No problem…just slip on the new Oculus Rift VR head set and we will turn your living space into the Taj Mahal. Next thing we will be doing is wearing exoskeleton’s and not have to physically move in a space at move at all.

    That got me to thinking…somewhat philosophically…What if millennia ago, some higher being needed to limit the space we occupied. (The human mind can reel out of control…look at the popularity of Donald Trump as an example) What if the entire universe was our space, and we were wearing our our welcome? And, to limit our space we were equipped with a biological VR machine…that we call eyes and an exoskeleton we call our body?

  4. “True Believer”. Thanks for the reminder.

    Then there’s David Horowtz, former leftist activist, and self described Red Diaper Baby. He said: “Inside every Liberal is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” True enough, but it applies to all the True Believers, and all the Predatory capitalists, power seekers of all stripes, including hall monitors.

    This is why small government with maximum personal liberty keeps making comebacks. It is based on experience and observation, more than faith and dogma. Sadly, it usually gets refreshed after the dumping of trainloads of manure into continent sized fans. Then people forget, over time, why we have to constantly restrain the monkeys. And it is why so many politicians hide behind the Constitution, while privatizing (looting) and funneling money and power to their sponsors.

    Like Hillary’s son in law, the hedge fund manager, or Ted’s wife the Givernment Sachs musketty muck. They look us straight in the eyes and tell us they will stop the very predatory things their close family members do for a very lucrative living. And the commercial funded media nod their heads to keep the paychecks rolling in from their sponsors, who also sponsor the candidates. What could possibly go wrong with such a system?

    Which is why Trump and Sanders scare the PTB so much. No sponsors, and the System is in failure mode.

    I speculate that Biden will be the Dem. candidate, if for no other reason than the MSM are tearing Hillary to bits, compared to any reporting about her in the past. Since they take orders on such things, I think there must be a plan to get rid of her. And the Sanders supporters who hate Hillary truly don’t hate Biden, and he is likeable, with little baggage, already knows the job, and is a natural politician, already on the Team. And the tired Clinton playbook is almost a parody of effective campaigning. So much so that they accuse their critics of using twenty year old, tired playbooks, and the media can’t even suppress ther smirks anymore.

  6. It’s not that I would mind living in 400 sq. ft., it’s just having to be within 400 sq. ft. of other people that I wouldn’t like.

  7. George-
    I heard a portion of your show last night and found your comments interesting to say the least. I missed a portion of one of your comments which I’d like to know in total. It was a formula using ‘key words’ via Google which would up link to something like Excel(?) via RSS feeds. Is there any chance of your repeating those several sentences for me? Thanks so much.

  8. Also heard you on coast last night. Agree about stock
    market. March April 2017 are months of concern.
    Seems your comment on owning a private plane flew
    right past host George. Kudos for an interesting first
    hour.

  9. On your “zombie” label for the constant users of social media on their smartphone — I have told others that if aliens (the from-space types) landed here and observed this behavior, they would likely deduce that the phones were the dominant intelligence form on earth and the people slave animals that carried (literally) out the commands of their phone masters.

  10. Along the line of powercrats, the Microsoft Central Scrutinizer installed Windows 10 pro on my wife’s computer-unasked-yesterday when started. Auto-update from 7 pro.(The install went smoothly.) I use manual update, found the offending file and deleted it from my machine before trouble. My son-IT specialist in a respected institution-says he got reports today of several other mandatory installs here in MT.
    Microsoft has gotten pushy, no? Where’s this money trail going?

    • Microsoft operating systems from MS-DOS v1 through Windows 8 have been a “pay once and done” license. Beginning with Windows 10 (and its associated business & technical programs, like Office) these are now all distributed on a “lease model.” You pay for it every 365 days from the date it’s first registered, or it stops working…

  11. Re: The Blame Game. If they want to keep blaming the thinkers for all their problems, using ‘toys’ thinkers invented for them to play with, maybe it’s time to take away those toys and see how well these ‘drooling masses’ can function without the productivity of the thinkers/builders. In other words, shut down social media for a month and see what happens; Farcebook, Twaddle, Snapcrap, Instaporn, the whole mess. Force the ‘facetime’ to see the TRUE face.

    • Every time I read commentary on this topic, I think back to college. My dating mentor (the guy who taught me how to date women, instead of bubble-headed sorority wannabees) would call a gal up, then talk just long enough to arrange to meet somewhere. When asked why he didn’t talk longer, his reply was: “The telephone is an inefficient, and impersonal means of communication…”

      As social communication has progressed through textchat, IM, and texting, I’ve marveled, and recalled my mentor’s words, noting each “leap forward” in communications has been a leap backward in communications efficiency. I can hardly wait for the next “advance,” which will probably be preprogrammed, canned commentary, which one’s device (whatever it may be) automagically sends in response to someone else’s canned commentary. It should be fun, watching that infinite loop of stupidity march through the under-35s…

  12. Okay, what didn’t pass moderation muster? If I must wait until I ‘break even’ to write anything worthy of mention, I’ll be long dead and far beyond any need for profit.
    BTW, I use a Yahoo email account because:
    1. It’s ‘free’.
    2. I can access my email from any internet-connected computer.
    3. I am much less likely to download viruses and malware.
    4. I don’t have to keep emails on my machine, where they take up what we po’ folks call ‘necessary space’.
    Making do here with one multiple partition, multi-boot (XP SP3 32-bit, Knoppix 7.6.1) 500GB Seagate Barracuda hd & one HP 1265d dvd/cd drive/burner, Pentium dual core @ 3.0 GHz CPU, 2GB RAM @ 800 MHz, one 20-inch monitor, ONE MACHINE.

  13. Now, the damn thing posts! Yes, I scan my machine daily if not more to keep the crap off it.

  14. Cycles of history. Archetypes. If you weren’t expecting a ‘Trump’ archetype about this time? History rhymes?? Hoover? Generational dynamics?

    If it weren’t a Trump/Hoover archetype, now, we’d have seen one within the next five to ten years.

    We’ll talk about a Trump White House in November. :)

    Data. Trends. ;)

  15. The economy in world cant go down the tube yet, I have not finished my Lazy Porch Garden for winter time

  16. Interesting you should mention Hoffer’s book as I had just picked up my copy recently.. here’s a snippet of what he wrote in his chapter “The Sinners” in “The True Believer” book you mentioned.. it’s rattled around in my head since I re-read it.
    It’s about a segment of the population which seems to have dramatically increased: the bored.

    “..To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should be at least as encouraging as that they are suffering from intolerable economic or political abuses. When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom. People who are not conscious of their individual separateness, as is the case with those who are members of a compact tribe, church, party etcetera, are not accessible to boredom. The differentiated individual is free of boredom only when he is engaged either in creative work or some absorbing occupation or when he is wholly engrossed in the struggle for existence.”

    Pluralism, divisive media and individual expression / social media that Internet driven culture has brought us to this place where many are flat out bored – despite having magical technologies and a wealth of learning material at our fingertips. As a wise old man told me, “if you’re bored, it’s your own damn fault.”

    He notes, also, that Hitler made full use of “the society ladies thirsting for adventure, sick of their lives, no longer getting a ‘kick’ out of love affairs.” (citing Hermann Rauschnings, “Hitler Speaks” 1940)

    In my estimation, The Donald is having the most success with this segment of the population: “the bored.”
    For the record, this is not to compare the two directly – though they’re both egotists. Just food for thought.

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