Actually, this happened a while back, but I've been busy. Suffice to say that after a horrible, horrible December, the ship of industry righted itself and returned to is normal course. Which, in these besotted times, is various degrees of upwards. Right now it is hovering in the mid-24ks, with the occasional wide swing upwards or downwards which quickly is discounted as because of particular good or bad news - trying to fit the facts to the narrative.
What is interesting is what is happening that is NOT having much affect on this market. Supposedly the stock market is sensitive enough to pitch itself off a cliff over a single event, a rumor of change, or a rogue tweet. Yet over the past few weeks, the DOW has been amazingly stolid in the face of such things as:
- The Federal Government shutting down for thirty-five days. This was an make-no-bones-about-it lockout. with people furloughed and those who were deemed invaluable forced to work without paychecks. Didn't seem to hurt the market.
- The House has put some honest-to-goodness progressives on major committees that have the teeth to investigate the shenanigans in our economic sector. Yet that did not offend the markets.
- The British Government failing to make good on its suicide pact to Brexit the rest of Europe, having not plan B, but leaving the same bunch in charge that failed to come up with first plan. This is globally huge, but didn't seem to hurt the market.
- Ongoing trade war with China, which has cut off a number of its US Imports,, while we've chosen to make it more expensive to buy theirs. Not only hasn't hurt the market, but the fairy-whisper thin rumor that things may get better drives it upwards.
- Continuing evidence and indictments on the Executive Branch which pretty much confirms the venal, illegal, and probably traitorous nature of an entire administration. Doesn't hurt the market, such that the dude is the White House tweets out that actually finding him guilty of his crimes WOULD hurt the market.
Yet these things have not had much effect on the markets, which seem to indicate that they are even more disconnected from not only the national scene, but from the world itself. And this will last until they make another "correction", which the buzzword for a sudden plunge, at which point the wise heads will point some piece of economic minutia, like the Fed Chairman not ruling out a rate hike over a lunch date, as a reason for the sudden tailspin.
More later,.