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Wednesday, March 15, 2017

The Market On Wednesday

  Good morning. It is 16 degrees and sunny here in the Upper Hudson Valley, the forecast predicts temperatures in the mid 20s and clouds this afternoon. Well that, was one snow storm. We are literally up to our eyeballs in snow as we dig out from yesterdays major snow blizzard. But at the moment we are experiencing what I consider to be one of the few rare peak days of the year, that's the day after a snow storm where the sun is out and there's a sense of nature settling down. There's a special rare clarity to days like this even though clouds are coming. The long range forecast has temperatures back above freezing on Friday and maybe we'll start to see some of this white stuff melt.

  I did tune into Rachel Maddow last night, hoping for fireworks. Instead we got two pages of Trump's 2005 tax returns which were not fireworks. Many suspect that Trump himself planted these and this certainly seems plausible. My actual TV view of the show on MSNBC was streaky so to speak. There were glitches and sputters to the video and I suspected a hack, possibly. If it were that, we will find out soon enough. Rachel Maddow be safe, she is on the cutting edge of the Trump resistance. I mean to say, I hope she has a lot of protection.

  At 8:30 a.m. ET DOW futures are +32 and the price of oil per barrel is up. The market is poised to open moderately higher.

  Snow storm aside, the Fed may very well raise the base interest rate today. This is the biggest news in my opinion for the morning. The rate hike indicates that the Fed, the dollar's bank of last resort, the back stop to the American and much of the global dollar economy, believes that economic conditions in the US continue to improve. A modest rate hike is no big deal, but it will make borrowed money a little more expensive. The completely free ride period is over, for now.

CNN: Fed decision looms; Dutch election; Oil's wild ride by Ivana Kottasova
All eyes are on the U.S. Federal Reserve, which is widely expected to raise interest rates at the end of its meeting on Wednesday.

2 comments:

Seadog said...

Here's what is going to happen with the oil markets. If I was a speculator I'd be buying oil futures like crazy right now. Why? Because, Donald has to start a War against Iran to get his loans to the Russians paid off. Iran would immediately try and close the Straits of Hormuz shutting down 50% of the World's oil supply in a moment. It's likely they'd sink as many US warships as necessary to have the same effect and they have advanced Russian and Chinese anti-ship missiles for just that job place near the straits. The price of OIL goes to $200 a bl. in a flash Russia is saved Donald is debt free and gets his 20% of Rosnef the Russian Nat'l Oil and Gas Corp. game over for the west and the US economy Donald and his Russian allies come in and buy up everything for pennies as the market collapses. He now has the power to do what Bin Laden did and do it as they say ROYALLY. Is he that much of a traitor? What do you think? It's known that Bin Laden made a killing by shorting Airlines stocks before 9/11. I think Trumpf is capable of anything to clear himself of the billions he's in debt. I think he thinks he can get away with it in the FOG of War he is going to create. Why do you think he wants a military build up with new Carriers as its centerpiece? Some people say FDR used our old Battleships as bait that the Japs took to start WW2. Who knows? We know this that Int'l politics and business is a huge multi-level game of chess and Donald is going to try his hand at it with his pal Putin's help. The Russians win big time in an Iranian War! They get to kill plenty of Americans and sell tons of weapons to Iran plus the Saudis would jump in as well and probably the Israelis. A total clusterfuck that possibly turns into a World War maybe. China would end up losing big time as their oil supply goes south as well. It's a huge gamble but the World is like a pile of dry tinder right now just as it was in 1913-14 all that was needed back then was a match and the Balkans served just as well. Today, a similar situation is developing and the instability TrumPutin has put into the World system is IMO going to collapse it sooner then later.

Jim Sande said...

You've been thinking about this far deeper than myself. I think war with Iran is a lose lose mostly because Iran is not Iraq. Iran is far more stable and weaponized than Iraq. A war with Iran is a real war, not a quick in and out with limited troops, all of whom are putting their lives on the line regardless of the size of the conflagration. America has no appetite for war, we lost it, so a provocation with the USA from Iran would have to be profound. Even right now people are asking Spicer questions like - when can we believe Trump? What's going on is that Trump is losing his power, his 'mandate' as it were. On the other hand, we know the neo-cons and hawks like McCain want to go into Iran, who knows.