I went in and out of Funko a couple times today. I saw it was down the magic 7.77% and it felt like it had to go up. 🙂
I also added & sold off at a slight gain on Yandex & AbbVie positions, though the older established positions I have in both are still stinking.
I went in and out of eBay for a small gain.
I was also quite happy to have sold off some Tencent yesterday even at a slight loss as it stunk today. I am still holding some which is down, though a tiny position.
I had a small position in Gold Corp (GG) which I sold at open.
The whole market was off solidly today, but some players turned up. Google closed green.
President Trump leveraged the Jamal Khashoggi murder to push Saudi Arabia to pump more oil, which hit oil prices. He then kicked the ball to Congress:
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump skewered the Saudis, saying, “They had a very bad original concept, it was carried out poorly and the coverup was the worst in the history of coverups. He added, “In terms of what we ultimately do, I’m going to leave it very much — in conjunction with me — I’m going to leave it up to Congress.”
If he can cause oil prices to fall then gas prices will fall, leading to lower inflation expectations by consumers. Which, he hopes, will give the economy more slack to grow & prevent the Fed from raising rates as quickly.
He is regularly casting hate toward Federal Reserve Chairm Jerome Powell:
“Every time we do something great, he raises the interest rates,” Mr. Trump said, adding that Mr. Powell “almost looks like he’s happy raising interest rates.” … “To me the Fed is the biggest risk, because I think interest rates are being raised too quickly,” the president said just before he pushed a red button on his desk, summoning an iced cola delivered to him on a silver platter.
Either he thinks the stock market & economy are headed south & he wants the Fed to be the bagholder, or he is trying to provide enough pressure in the hopes he can slow down rate increases until after he is re-elected.
In a land of make believe eventually people believe in nothing. Former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker recently wrote a book on this:
“Respect for government, respect for the Supreme Court, respect for the president, it’s all gone,” he said. “Even respect for the Federal Reserve.” … “The central issue is we’re developing into a plutocracy,” he told me.
The trend in the market has been ugly of late.
The markets fell on Monday in part on worries about a deluge of corporate earnings reports coming this week. The S&P 500 has fallen for four sessions in a row, and 11 of the past 13 sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq are on pace for their worst month since January 2016.
If I had to guess my hunch is we’ll open up slightly tomorrow, though I am mostly in cash at the moment. The only position I added to significantly on a relative basis today was a bit of Funko bought just before close.
If oil falls another day or two & XOM goes with it I might buy a bit.
In order to maintain the troll level at 11, President Trump revoked a nuclear agreement with Russia & then announced he would soon meet Putin.
Exxon Mobil might soon work with Russia on some projects, but palladium is trading at an all-time high even as car sales slow across China , emerging markets, the UK & even the US.
AT&T reports before open tomorrow. Verizon was up huge on an earnings beat today, pulling AT&T up with it. Texas Instruments was off in after hours on weak guidance while Kimberly-Clark was up big like Procter & Gamble was on earnings last week.