History Repeats: "When The President Does It, It's Not A Crime"

Nine minutes. 108 points.

That's what happened when the Dow slipped into the red at 10:23 am ET on Monday. Instead of continuing lower, the market simply changed direction, suddenly, without reason or cause and was on its way to a better day, a brighter future, a higher close.

Richard Nixon once famously said, "when the president does it, it's not a crime." Apparently, the same twisted logic applies to central bank and/or government meddling in markets. For now, the meddlers want to keep markets up, and, if one were to ask the common man or woman's opinion on this type of activity, they might think that it's OK, so long as they are putting money into the market to keep it from crashing... or some other variant of pretzel logic, or the absence of logic altogether.

Lest one is not familiar with the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, often referred to as the PPT or Plunge Protection Team, there is verifiable proof of its existence. In case one is not convinced that the "Working Group" is "working," a little research will reveal some of the more stunning, rapid advances on entire stock indices over the past 30 years which will make Monday's nine minute, 108 Dow points pale in comparison.

Here is just one article on the topic.

The problem with a mechanism such as the Working Group is that it causes distortions in markets, creates unreasonable values in individual stocks, and eventually is a losing gambit fueled by counterfeit money created by the Fed out of thin air. With that kind of magic at their disposal, is it any coincidence that stocks are still aiming at highs amidst the longest bull market ever, or are current stock valuations a true reflection of the strength of the corporatist economy?

The second, larger problem, lay in the circumstance when the Working Group decides to take a day off, like when they decided to allow Lehman Brothers to fail in 2008. All they need do is stand by and watch stocks vaporize, which they did back then and will again, when it pleases their purposes.

Maybe this is not what you came here to read, but, it's never a bad idea to consider what's behind the curtain, lurking in the shadows, unseen and mostly unknown.

Tuesday is election day, so get out there and vote, because, as we're told every two or four years, this is the most important election in our lifetimes.

Dow Jones Industrial Average November Scorecard:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
11/1/18	25,380.74	+264.98	+264.98
11/2/18	25,270.83	-109.91	+155.07
11/5/18	25,461.70	+190.87	+345.94

At the Close, Monday, November 5, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 25,461.70, +190.87 (+0.76%)
NASDAQ: 7,328.85, -28.14 (-0.38%)
S&P 500: 2,738.31, +15.25 (+0.56%)
NYSE Composite: 12,424.31, +102.51 (+0.83%)