Before Launch: Let’s do the Only Chart That Matters
2019 sure looks like a peach, don’t it?
Although the market futures are showing a decline this morning, that latest crackpot theory we’ve been kicking around over on our Peoplenomics.com subscriber side (“Trading Box Theory”) offers a very short-term outlook that the market could turn turn up here and then rally into mid-to-late next week. More for subscribers on point Saturday.
Let’s start with a discussion of “Tax Loss Selling.” As you know, or should, when you pay income taxes on gains in the stock market, you can offset gains in one stock with losses in another. If you made a gain of $1,000 on Company A, but lost $750 on shares of Company B, your taxable gain would be $250. There are other rules – like the max of $3,000 in losses (after which it’s tax-loss carry-forward land), or wash-sales, but that’s the gist of it.
That’s one of the dynamics going on this week – and it’s why we don’t get too worked up over the present market decline: In order to be consider a “tax loss” those turkeys in the portfolio have to be sold off AND SETTLE before the end of the year.
BUT…there is (on equities but not options) the Three Day Settlement Rules, in order to “count” for tax purposes, the settlement date matters, not the transaction date.
So…
We look at the calendar and see if a certain turkey (stock) was sold yesterday, today counts as Day 1 toward settlement. Monday is Day 2, and because of Christmas, we could not see the money land in our account until next Wednesday – 3 day settlement, capisce? .
If something is sold today, then it would settle next Thursday so although Monday is a holiday-abbreviated session, it will be the end of this tax-selling window for the year.
There’s another angle to this that could fuel a bounce next week: A lot of hedge funds will do portfolio “window-dressing” which means (even if they don’t own the year’s best performers TODAY) they still have time to add them to the portfolio before the end of the year. That’s because while they didn’t make any money in these hottest of stocks, they will still be able to report to their stakeholders that “As of December 31st, we held X, Y, and Z in the following hot stocks...” and not be lying. In other words, they can claim ownership (and quite legally & correctly) but they can’t use last-minute window-dressing for Tax Purposes. (Options, one day settlements are not something hedgies brag about – because that’s like asking investors to put their money into a nitroglycerin lab run by ADHD monkeys…)
With such dynamics, it is POSSIBLE that a good deal of the market action is both delayed Fed reaction AND Tax Loss Selling. You can pencil it out…but no one really knows the ratios.
Unfortunately, that gets us to the other driver of this decline…
America’s Trumplems
We need to walk through these one-at-a-time because there are so many of them – and each is terribly complicated.
Let’s revisit his Human Resources Disaster. Evidence of this is the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. You can read his resignation letter here.
For a moment, I thought I heard the sound of popping champagne corks coming from the direction of the Kremlin. Nothing could be better news to Vlad Putin who is likely (not this weekend, but next) may move to retain southern Ukraine and thus land-lock the Kiev government.
As we have been reporting for some weeks now, the Ukraine situation has the potential to become a kind of Archduke Ferdinand battleground for the West. About year end would fit, judging by “Ukraine plans another incursion into Kerch Strait, hopes NATO ships will join in – top official...”
To suggest that Secretary of Defense Mattis’ departure could “light the fuse of WW III” is possibly not an exaggeration. Vlad Putin would like to retake southern Ukraine but with a super-strong (Mad Dog) Mattis extraordinarily capable and able to direct an effective counter to Russian moves, Mattis was a check on Russian adventurism.
The further Russian benefit of mattis’ departure is that plans to draw-down and disengage from Syria and Afghanistan are problematic as well. Mainly because Syria is a gateway country to the Med as well as a logical routing for the upcoming development of the Leviathan oil and gas resource off Lebanon. Trust you caught where “With One Tweet, Trump May Have Given Assad a Path to Victory in Syria“?
Donald Trump is not the only one worried about Russian hacking, either: “Hacking risk rises ‘exponentially’ for troops using personal devices, experts warn,” Shaping the battlespace, dear reader, it’s all shaping operations.
Strategically, the Mattis departure, as you can see, will fuel the Russian’s next moves. And it’s only ONE Trump HR problem.
Then There’s the Shutdown & Fence
While the Russians are planning their next adventures, the matter of the southern (porous and barely a ) border continue to unfold. In the latest moves, The House Approves Funding for President Trump’s Border Wall as Shutdown Looms. But, unless Trump likes “the deal” (and if it gets to him in time) a government shutdown is coming. As you can see in “Government careens toward shutdown after Trump’s wall demand.”
That, too, wears on markets. I think less than the rate hike this week, less than tax-loss selling, and less that our foreign policy blowing up, but this is hardly a precise science. My consigliere figures I’m under-weighting the potential shutdown impacts. But,. last time we had a shutdown, the world didn’t end, nor did markets.
Also related: “Illegal immigrant’s murderous spree shows California must scrap ‘sanctuary’ law, GOP lawmaker says.”
Even Melania is in Play
As we read over on Fox “Melania Trump haters attacked first lady throughout 2018, from mocking accent to slamming Christmas décor” not only does America face the relatively “clean problems” of managing the country, but also the social media spew that has led to the foundations of Digital Mob Rule (the DMR/Internet Uprising), that continues to propagate.
The mainstream media has it “out for Trump” because he dared to step outside the conventional media hierarchy when he went largely “consumer-direct” with his Twitter Account.
Remember the “old model” of media power? A president would hold a press conference and the “major corporate media” would come in, get the press release and access for questions, and then the MSM would “sell” news of the country to people (selling ads in their papers which has semi-exclusive content). They made money, they had power, and they defended their business model against Trump’s new consumer-direct model.
You may not have considered this, but a “new kind of governance” is becoming possible with the Internet. A new kind of “online democracy” but you don’t see it yet. But try to follow this: Remember how we went from early HTML on the web to fully responsive websites?
Well, the same thing can happen to democracy if we’re smart-enough to see the migration path and get there. That’s because with the Web, we can do a much better (and deeper) assessment of what America needs to happen. The future of Congressional Research, for example, might look like this:
Since the government is already tied at the hipl to both Amazon (AWS/Amazon Web Services) and Google, we can see how feeds of RSS and FSB summaries by demographic have the potential to keep elected officials almost perfectly-informed.
From there, it’s only a short hop, skip, and jump with even near-A.I. to take existing laws and retool them in a manner that could make American Government 2.0 a responsive governance plan. Think of how the ERP models rolled out and how they made companies more responsive… Why we’re not working this (as a whole country) is beyond me. It’s as exciting and potentially beneficial as going to the moon.
yet, here we sit, waiting to get into the office to put in another 40 hours, so we can pay taxes with 10 of those hours, and sit in traffic.
THAT’s what so many people died defending? I don’t think so, but our Lack of National Purpose is a familiar whine around here. The Framers left us with a superb operating platform but we have “gee’d it up with politics” rather than rolling it into a Responsive ERP model that serves everyone with Excellence. (Somehow, I digressed)
Bottom line is yes, we have Trumplems and Tax Loss Selling. When I looked earlier, Futures were down “only” 60 on the Dow, so it seems that the “fever may break” before the next leg in our “Trading Boxes” reveals itself in mid=January. Another slide down earlier in the month, however, remains possible; we were serious about barf bags for the second week of January if things don’t straighten out.
The Collapse of Privacy
Thoughtful note from oakly-clustery warhammer to ponder – as it directly relates to the evolution of “digitized democracy: Privacy is turning into an historical artifact:
“Most westerners tend to think that there are certain ‘curtains of privacy’ that we can hide behind, an inherent privilege of living in democracies. In ‘Merica, the 4th Amendment to our Constitution emphatically states:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
‘Mericans would be right to assume the 4th (Amendment) protects us from our local, state and federal government ‘unreasonably’ nosing through our private affairs. But they’d be wrong to assume they are protected from the marketing analysts of commerce.
All manner of human and social behavior are being surreptitiously monitored and modeled, but quite legally. How many of us, when we purchase a new desktop, laptop, tablet or smart phone, actually take the time to carefully parse through screen after screen of legalese before ‘accepting’ the manufacturer’s terms which allow us access to the devices full capabilities? Or Apps for that matter? Blindly agreeing to those mind numbing paragraphs results in our completely surrendering our private data to the seller and their partners, fueling their marketing engines.
The linked Guardian piece reveals how Alphabet (formerly known as Google) is now all knowing and all seeing through their deliberate and consistent data aggregation and analysis processes. For Example, Google Home, the parent company’s version of Amazon’s Alexa, amplifies the influence of an already pervasive global surveillance network by monitoring our conversations for marketable data, as does every other Google related App used on one’s smart device – Google Earth, Translate, Gmail, Search, News, Drive, Photos, Search, Shopping, etc.
Not to pick on just Google – Apple and Microsoft are complicit in this chicanery. Now the public is learning that for well over a decade Google partnered with ‘3-letter’ government spy agencies, sharing ‘aggregated’ data and ‘analyzed’ results but allegedly protecting each individual’s “personal info.”
With the help of social pattern analysis algorithms implemented on a massive scale, soon individual actions will be reliably predictive. Instead of the Precogs of ‘Minority Report,’ AI driven social pattern analysis, fed to law enforcement, will predict crimes before can be committed.
Then we Serfs can expect to reap for our Masters the fruits of those furtive seeds so comprehensively sown.
“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” ~ George Orwell
On the other hand, since Elaine and I live in a totally voice-controlled home with Amazon devices, our view of “privacy” is evolving. We have certain things we go “out in the woods” to talk about, but mainly, if a “man is innocent, should he fear?”
The correct answer is yes – since the goals and motives of the listeners is never clear. But we view having the intercom, entertainment, and voice control of this a decent trade-off. At 70 something, recording our “personal moments” is something of a compliment, but no, we don’t have any video devices. (No video devices because Elaine’s pole dancing is something we wish to maintain copyright control over in the event we eventually decide to market a DVD of it…)
OK, the “correct answer” for the young? Any use of my voice, thoughts, likenesses, tastes, personal history, patterns of consumption, etc. must be compensated-for and provision of free listening to switch devices is NOT adequate compensation.
Except when you get old – WGAS?
Der Daily Data
Always something, isn’t it?
Next slide, please?
Which is scaring the poor bears. The world’s not ending. Futures are almost even at click-time. ( Or, it could be my crystal clear thinking is doing it…)
So: What Else Matters?
Yeah, I know…nattering-on about a future to aim for isn’t always possible if you’re stuck in the “Quicksand of Now.”
While we await next weeks release of the monthly S&P/Case-Shiller Housing data, here’s a report that sounds to us suspiciously like “whistling in the graveyard:” “Historical Data Shows House Prices Resilient to Rising Rates, According to First American Real House Price Index.”
Context-centricism: As “AP Explains: Nissan’s ex-chair spending Christmas in custody” UrbanSurvival Explains: Christmas ain’t no biggie in Japan. Japan is 1% Christian, but 63 percent party...so we conclude they’re pretty good at the partying part…)
Mile-High Madness
Of particular interest to our Houston-area ex Pan-Am crew: “Most bizarre airline incidents of 2018.”
You’re Geeing Old When…
Don’t know why, but I was thinking just this morning how you can guess a person’s age pretty easily with one simple question:
What’s PCP?
If you’re a Millennial “PCP? Angel Dust, old dude.”:
If you’re a grown-up? “PCP? That’s my “Primary Care Physician” for Medicare, young man…”
And there is the generation gap in a nutshell, for you. That plus spelling, punctuation, manners, shined shoes, fashion, sense of entitlement, do-vers, an inclination to work, and…..(Whew! Longer list than I thought…it goes Energizer on me…)
Tomorrow, a discussion of The 5G Monkeys on Urban and no telling on Peoplenomics… Our schedule will be “mostly normal” (or what passes for that) except no column Christmas. Do be “present” all other days, though… I promise: Shorter columns in 2019!
The only thing that matters, George, & has, is that 17 week MA.
George, instead of “going out in the woods” to talk privately, have you considered using a “cone of silence?”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tu5piMRY1fU
George,
If the USA is dependent on “one guy”, be he Sec Def and/or general, to deter a possible Russian move in the Ukraine, we’ve already lost.
And Assad (and the Russians) have already won in Syria. Unless we want to go head to head into war with Russia, this is a done deal and whatever “side” we were on and whatever real purpose we had there, that situation was already hosed before Trump got there.
One of his campaign positions was getting the USA out of no end wars and it’s past time to be doing so.
Besides, those troops need to go to Poland, right?
Good analysis. I am not sure why George thinks we should be in Syria or why we should worry about Ukraine. The US is in a terrible economic mess so going to another phony war really is not a realistic option. The Russians are interested in Ukraine because they do not want another ‘NATO’ country on their border. NATO has expanded way beyond the agreements made in 1991. The US has repeatedly lost small and stupid wars. Better to figure out how we are going to handle the crushing debt we are entangled in!
Thanks Marlowe7, I wanted to make a similar comment, but you covered it pretty well…
“One of his campaign positions was getting the USA out of no end wars and it’s past time to be doing so.”
Yep, that’s why a lot of people voted for him.
Elaine’s pole dancing ?? George you are bad !! LOL. But to the point, all of these things related to Amazon/Google/Microsoft is a very dangerous precedence, to be sure ! I am curious to know when the level of betrayal gets pronounced enough for the revolt to happen . Good article though George !!
George…You might want to recheck the info on tax selling. I believe it is not based on settlement date but trade date unless it is a short sale.
Yikes
A correction has been posted!
George
“since Elaine and I live in a totally voice-controlled home with Amazon devices”
I am someone who has worked with advanced industrial automation systems and did design work at the microprocessor level. What is needed is not a Distributed System that Google or Alexa provide but a stand alone Home System that controls all of the home devices. It could have a portal to the internet but be totally controlled as to access by the user. It could have software filters to prevent spying on the users data and a manual hard wired cutoff switch for the portal. I have not researched what’s out there already as I have no need of it but I bet there’s a market for it.
Computer: Earl Grey Hot!
I think X-10 can do a lot of what you’re suggesting but I haven’t seen good speaker-independent voice recognition controls…
Remember the early days of cordless phones, when, if you had a scanner, you could hear everything said in your neighbors home.
Some of us really value privacy. Not just for whatever we might want to hide, but simply for the principle of the thing. I bought a used android phone to play with(cost $10.) and there’s nothing much I can do with it without having a Google ID. That requires giving them a functional phone number to link everything to, and of course even a smart phone without a carrier has GPS, so wherever I might enable wifi, I’d be tracked. For now I’m not doing much with the phone at all other than keeping it charged.
There’s no reason not to design security and home automation systems to be secure from most any interlopers! At the least they should be tamper and intrusion evident. Any needed servers can and should be on premises and physically secured. Optional access to the net can be implemented as needed, and physically unplugged until then. We have sufficient cheap computing power to enable on site voice independent word recognition, though I don’t particularly like having such a thing around. I have no intention of ever inviting Amazon Alexa or the Google or other equivalent into my home, or even on my property. It’s offensive and creepy, just like Facebook.
Hi George. You say: “The mainstream media has it “out for Trump” because he . . . he went largely “consumer-direct” with his Twitter Account.”
Silly me. And I thought it was the constant lying, unabashed corruption, palpable incompetence, laziness and Russian mafia. Best, Mike.
DJT tries to reduce our overseas military bases from 800 to 798.
Media and neocons have a melt down. I suppose it hurt Raytheon’s share price.
I think the proper number is about 5. Who is actually going to invade the US, anyway?
You know George I thought you were more intelligent than falling for the old cold war mentality (looting the treasury) that every thing under the sun was Russia fault,Trump finally did something that he said he would, bringing home the troops from Syria and reducing the number of troops in Afghanistan,and as far as the Ukraine we know who cooked that goose Nuland,McCain,Biden,Clinton to name a few along with $5 billion U.S. tax dollars and billions more that they can never repay,I wonder how many new schools,new hospitals,new bridges and roads those billions would have built and of course we will never find out…
Complaining that Trump is getting out of the pit of Syria, getting rid of the neo cons, and holding fast on the wall funding makes me wonder why you voted for the guy ?
Remember about Mattis, to a man with a gun ,everything is a target.
This is what pushing back looks like in Washington. The resignation of the Secretary of Defense is not world ending. House adds $5 billion for Wall…PT has positioned Democrats to not let government shutdown for $5 billion dollars. Democrats are behind forced to defend their unwillingness to defend the border. What PT has done has solidified his base. The Democrats spend $5 billion dollars on toilet seats for the military…It is chump change.
PT is tactically smart. Nobody has ever lost anything with a government shutdown anyway – long term or short term.
If you bring the surveillance system into your home willingly and have to go “out in the woods” to have a secure conversation then you are part of the problem.
Trumplen #1…t’s curious to me that just months after Trump gives defense a $717 billion boost, he pulls out of Syria…this is on the heels of his criticism of Obama when he went on a tweet storm saying that Obama pulling out of Iraq would create a vacuum that ISIS, Hezbollah and Russian forces would fill. Two scenarios here…trump is in so much trouble politically, he needs a perceived “victory”
Notice that Trump Tweeted, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”
Let’s analyze that statement. “MY ONLY REASON”… So now it’s Trumps sole decision huh? This is an ego statement. Like George W declaring “Mission Accomplished” on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, Trump is jumping the gun to make himself and only himself look good. But America is smarter than that…That may or may not include his dwindling base unfortunately. He end this tweet with another 3rd person egotistical reference…”The Trump Presidency”
I have been reading just about every article available and whether it is conservative or liberal, all agree that something else is at play here. Trump is running out of time and needs to act on his pre-campaign under the table promises to sinister forces…This quick decision to pull out is a result of a Kompromat…When he went through his 6th bankruptcy, he needed to fund his business in more creative ways, because the US banking system has laws that prohibit financing a fiscal low life like this…He had to turn to foreign governments…most notably Russia and Saudi Arabia. Guess who is the biggest beneficiary of a Syrian pull-out? Mueller knows this…and Trumps action was the Christmas gift he was waiting for…Just wait…It gets interesting from here on out. San Mattis, the door is wide open for Trumps creditors.
Trumplen #2…Again, Trump needs a victory to save his patoot. The border wall is all smoke and mirrors. Congress gave him $1.3 billion last year, which he still has not spent. The Senate proposed another $1.3 billion…The only thing keeping Trump from signing the bill is his own ego. He made a fatal strategic flaw by limiting his options. Instead of the proper wording of border security, he stuck with a physical and analog style WALL. Had he compromised by just using the term Border Security, he would have had more success. The simple reason is that our security is much more complicated than just a wall. What Trump never mentions is that American taxpayers already spent billions on border security…including a 700 mile physical barrier along the southern border of Mexico. Over the past 24 years, the amount of border security has increased 14 times and agents have increased 500%. For instance Arizona has 123 miles of fencing, and 183 miles of vehicle blockades and Texas has the same…More important, technology is our biggest deterrent to smugglers, and also proves effective. It not all about a “Wall”.
Trumplen #3. Privacy, I am less concerned about. My former career as an ad agency exec was focused in the Holy Grail of accurate consumer data. From the early days of Neilson ratings when viewers had to physically track their viewing habits on forms to statistically mirror what the rest of the countries TV preferences were…to phone surveys, focus groups, etc., advertisers have always wanted to know what makes us all tick…and we have been prepared for that. Being in the Ad Biz, I never was allowed to fill any of the Neilson forms out, but I have seen them and they were intense and intrusive. Then they changed to Neilson boxes and now Facebook and Google are the new Neilson.
Personally, I really don’t care what they know about me. So what, they know I bought Bombas socks, Fisetin (Georges Recommendation) and a PajamaGram for my mother. They are kind enough to remind me of that every Christmas and on birthday’s and seem to know when I run out of stuff to make my life easier…Brand loyalty is now automatic. If I don’t like the product I order, I get to opt out and block that company…which is extremely easy to do. I like that I can set up my preferences and control what news I get, products I order, people I want to see on social media feeds, shows I watch, sports I like and mountain hiking groups I can participate in.
Slow day on the real estate front…playing Santa today.,. and expressing my opinions…have a safe and happy Holidays folks!
Putin popping champagne corks? What the heck? You have not REVIEWED the Ukraine situation with some semblance of objectivity. George, you have a responsibility to retain objectivity. The Ukraine “revolution” was Bolshevik/Marxist, organized by Yulia Tymoshenko, among others. The former was a re-invented “peasant” Marxist seeking to topple the Ukraine with the help of U.S. funding (and MUCH of it, millions); which she and “they” did successfully. Not to be left out, the Red Kosher Nostra was also reportedly involved, including many of the same notorious figures now in the Mueller investigative crosshairs. As soon as the Marxist/Bolshevik Revolution was underway, the Ukrainian Marxists issued orders to slaughter any native Russians they found in their paths for no other reason than the fact that they could. War between the Ukraine and Russia became the only thing. The new Ukraine government could afford to get cocky. It was now backed by the United States and the full of her military. The second order of business was to criminally conquer and seize Crimea, a region traditionally occupied by ethnic working class Russians. Crimea was additionally quite strategic, as it also serves as Russia’s only warm sea port. George? What are you talking about? Russia “land locking” the Ukraine? Have the rest of the facts been thrown into the wastebasket? WTH? Are we supposed to applaud Marxism now? Thank you.
LOL this doesn’t have a thing about the post today but still cute.. I have an old friend J.. that loves to read.. MORE than myself we actually met in the LOC stacks some 43 years ago…. LOL.. anyway we visit a couple of times a year and she called to wish us a Merry xmas.. she claims last year as the year of the mighty squirrel we were talking about how gardens failed.. she to is a bottom feeder mostly because she to didn’t have any opportunities come around or when they did she wasn’t able to take advantage of them and without a pretty piece of paper on the wall or some name as a backer and because she came from a poor family a higher education was out of the question.. it is meaningless to even expect it to change today if your poor and go to school.. get the paper the cost of the paper is so high that your take home wage is that of a bottom feeder anyway…
anyway there is something going on that because she is a bottom feeder you just don’t have the qualifications to fix.. or they won’t let you proceed to fix it without the credentials..I of course suggested she see what the qualifications were to fix it and if she couldn’t fudge it…. so during the conversation she said.. If I could only find someone smart.. I laughed and said young lady you do know I know better.. you have probably read ten times or so more than anyone that even teaches the subjects this revolves around.. she has definitely read more than myself.. she still reads close to what sixty books a month.. I am at fifteen to twenty give or take.. LOL LOL she is a voracious reader..
then she got onto the book she just finished.. about the life history of Catherine of Aragon.. amazing I hadn’t heard that name in years.. but it brought up some good memories of literature on the old manual entitled the Education of a Christian woman.. written sometime a while back.. fifteen something I think.. and the political drama that was just as nuts then as it is now..
there are a few papers done on the manual and a few dozen on catherines life.. some of the old thesis papers you can still get from the Glasgow university library I think.. and of course the old books.. I will read the books again just to refresh my memories of it..
I find it curiously interesting that in five hundred years things are still the same or repeating itself..or is it all just a constant loop..Or better yet are the puppeteers ancestors families actually the ones that caused the drama then as they are now.. just doing what was taught through the centuries as a ways and means to control the populations.. would that mean we are just stupid following stupid century after century….
Facebook running out of Sheeple data:
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-revenue-and-user-growth-declining-in-europe-2018-10
Life, Liberty and Internet Privacy (U.S. could learn from E.U):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation
Internet users in U.S. peaked:
https://www.adweek.com/digital/has-internet-social-and-device-use-reached-its-saturation-point-in-the-u-s/
I fail to see what “shutting the government down” means to normal folks. People still get their SS payments. What else matters to normal people? ATC still operates, unfortunately so does TSA. People will mostly get where they intend to. The military is exempt. Just bureaucrats and politicians are whining.
I’m going to change the center link in my van and cut firewood tomorrow regardless of what the politicians do in DC.
Actually, it’s a payoff to the Deep State bureaucracy – they will get back pay, lol – free xmas vacations for feds now, is it?
There’s no excuse for “back pay” for sitting at home enjoying yourself. There needs to be pain for these thugs in suits. I’d also cut off pay for the congressoids that waste our tax dollars and produce nothing of value.
The closest vision we’ve had this millennium is “Make America Great Again”. The courts and congress have done all in their power to destroy this vision, rather than embrace and enable it. That’s sedition in my book.
PCP? Phencyclidine, of course. An 8th circuit dissociative psychedelic according to the late Timothy Leary.
I must be a Millennial!
Primary Care Physician? WTF? NO!
I figured a Personal Care Provider was an Asian masseuse.
Looks like crude is going to Around $25 a barrel. Would sure be good if the middle easters didnt have so much money to spend on warfare. Great if he would stay there for a few years. I was selling my oil back in the day at $2.25 a barrel. Thought was doing great.