We see by the early futures that the odds of the market dropping 140 points at the open are better than the odds of remaining governor in Virginia.
The technical problem for the market next week is simple enough: At the time of our January options settlement the Aggregate Index was hovering around 22,681. As of the early futures today, our Aggregate is around 23,180.
It’s axiomatic that the BTFD crowd shouldn’t get too rich, too fast, so a decline into next week is certainly a possibility.
Regardless, there’s not much going on in finance today except for the Consumer Debt report due out from the Fed. But not until the moment the markets close. That should be an interesting number based on there being a shutdown (likely #1 of 2, in our view). If the number if weak then the market decline might speed up.
Our own plans involve reading the Fed report right when it comes out and maybe doing an after-hours trade…we shall see. BTC’s at just over $3.360 early on.
The bigger problems for the economy haven’t changed. There are still trade talks, a mess in Venezuela, and all-told its barely enough to keep us awake.
Still, the Wall Street Journal is beginning to “lean a little Trump” seems to us, as they out the democrat’s soak-the-rich schemes as a route to control the “means of production.” Bloomberg has some of the play-by-play over here, but we have to laugh when the self-righteous get blowback. Perhaps there’s balance in the Universe, after all? Are we seeing a transition from democrats to cannibals?
No, they’re still republivores as Trump accuses Schiff of ‘unlimited presidential harassment’ amid new probe. Are we surprised? It all plays as a distraction from?
Other Imploding Democrats
State of Virginia is in an upheaval because so many top democrats, governor, lt. gov, and attorney general, are all being outed as what? Oh, either claims of sexual assault or racisms.
The NY Post Page 6 headline “Virginia is for Losers” was nice.
Which gets us back to reminding you that both political parties are foxtrot-uniformed – it was just this time the democrats got swept up in it.
But What Really Matters?
Well, hidden right in plain sight is the implosion of the Internet and the complete re-ordering of media.
On the movie lots, see Anxiety, AWOL Executives and “Bloodshed”: How Disney Is Making 21st Century Fox Disappear.
And in the media note how New York Times subscriber numbers are skyrocketing in the Trump age . Which,, we note, is based largely on a daily front page load of mostly non-stop Trump-hating. Which, as we see now, really does sell papers.
And did you see where “Microsoft Partner ‘NewsGuard’ Removes Daily Mail from News Blacklist?”
So are we headed for a return of Yellow Journalism? I mean, the idea is to make money at all costs, right? When we made up a list of media outfits and profits, seemed to us like the biggest revenue gains were claimed by the most anti-Trump.
But no only are the studios and papers in an emotional breakdown, but t here’s a few of the current deal points leading to the breakdown of the Internet:
“NYPD to Google: Stop revealing the location of police checkpoints.”
“Big Telecom Sold Highly Sensitive Customer GPS Data Typically Used for 911 Calls.”
And a John Nolte column points out what a miserable job of fact-checking the “fact checkers” are doing.
A quick foray into Google Trends reveals the internet is in a slow-motion fade…
No, the internet is not going away, but it’s fading into ubiquity. The “platforms” are still there, but the renegades and start-ups? Find those on social and video platforms. Regardless, the decline in searches for “Internet” is interesting…
See, the Internet doesn’t fix much. In fact, piece out in Gizmodo today says “1 in 20 people have suffered unbearable pain” because of the net. Not unexpected to those of us who have passed the speed limit with our ages, but yeah, there was a world once without online threats, intimidation, name-calling and revenge porn. ISYN.
Even more interesting is that the Internet is about to become a barricade for historical revisionists. Flickr will start to purge shortly.
And it’s justice delayed in Akron where an Internet outage has taken down municipal court.
None of this surprises us: Hoola Hoops broke and so did CB Radio. So will social until someone invents the software/online equivalent of a gun.
As Forbes revealed in one of Life’s grander ironies: “Google Reveals A Big Problem With Passwords On Safer Internet Day.”
In my younger days, I would rage on for considerably longer and tell you this will all be fitted-together, jigsaw-like, in my coming book Broken Web – II. But today?
Screw it. I keep talking shorter columns…maybe it’s time. Breakfast and a nap sounds a lot more productive.
We’re going from a low of 72-degrees last night here at the ranch to 34-degrees tonight. Weather and breakfast, in the end, mean more than all that filler online and what air-heads slop-up as “news” on the channels.
Moron the ‘morrow.
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