With a Fed-less Week Ahead, Markets Will Be on Their Own

The markets have opened quietly Sunday evening, continuing their recent, respective trends with mincing steps. The dollar is up, bullion has inched lower, T-Bonds are down and crude is in a dirge. The big news event of the week will be retail sales data due out Friday, and mortgage applications on Wednesday morning. With nothing coming from the Fed, however, we’ll get to see how stocks, bonds and commodities act ‘on their own’. My guess is that it will be a pretty dull week. The Dow, which settled Friday at 18543, will have a shot at 19061, but that would be the very best I could see, and I doubt whether the blue chip average will be able to sustain that altitude for long if it gets there. _______ UPDATE (August 8, 6:35 p.m. EDT): Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.  Monday was the lowest-volume day of 2016. _______ UPDATE (August 9, 7:49 p.m.): Tuesday produced yet another day of suffocating tedium. It’s hard to believe that the only thing capable of moving the markets any more is the Fed’s ultimately meaningless, will-they-or-won’t-they game.

  • John Jay August 10, 2016, 10:15 am

    Zombie Markets!
    Zombie Economy
    Zombie Populace!

    Zombie Markets!
    Kept upright with fresh injections of debt whenever they are about to fall over and finally die! Long state of coma at two and four hour supports, then, instant convulsions as debt injections kick in.

    Zombie Economy!
    Kept alive with Government Largess and Pervasive Lawlessness! Smaller and smaller numbers of people actually produce or repair anything.

    Zombie Populace!
    Larger and larger numbers of people incapable of properly feeding themselves and exercising enough to avoid overwhelming a Healthcare System that is approaching 25% of the economy! Can’t hold a job, although there are no jobs to be held now! Living in the vast wasteland of the Popular Culture Digital Media Matrix.
    Or, as an old CW song put it:
    Faster horses!
    Younger women!
    Older whiskey!
    More money!
    Yeah, that’s the dream, that’s the ticket!

    And the Hillary campaign and the MSM goes Goldwater on Trump a la LBJ’s “Barry Goldwater is a trigger happy nut that will start a nuclear war.” TV ad.
    And we all know how that turned out for us, don’t we?

    It just keeps getting worse, every day, in every way!

    Zombie populace!
    Kept alive with debt, and Government Largess, kept in line by propaganda crafted to fool their eight year old intellects! This propaganda used to be geared to a twelve year old mind, but there has been a steady decline since the 1960s.