From Tuesday's breakout on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (46,682.71) to Wednesday's closing bell, the Dow has lost a little more than one percent. That surely doesn't sound like much, but downturns have to start somewhere and the timing of this tail seems a bit suspect.
Previously, on Monday, the S&P topped late in the afternoon session (6,697.91) as did the NASDAQ (22,794.95). Both were ahead of the market by quite a bit and both have been tumbling since. While Money Daily has been promoting the idea that stocks appear to have further room to run, if this spate of downside sliding continues through the rest of this week and into the next - when the government's fiscal year of 2025 ends on September 30 and 2026 begins on October 1 - there's a good likelihood of serious erosion if the congressional assemblage doesn't come together on a stop-gap funding continuing resolution (CR) to maintain the government through the next seven weeks (November 22).
Yes, that's right, seven weeks. All the wrangling and arm-twisting in D.C. is over legislation that funds the government for less than two months. Democrats are digging in on restoring a trillion dollars worth of Medicare/Medicaid cuts that were tossed out under the president’s "big, beautiful bill" that he signed on July 4. Republicans contend that they want a "clean" bill with no additions other than $30 to $50 million for additional security for legislators, the Trump administration, and Supreme Court justices.
That officials of the federal government are concerned about their own safety is an interesting anecdote, considering they are, as a whole, probably the most unserious, facile, self-absorbed gaggle of misanthropes ever assembled in one place, lurching from one self-imposed crisis to the next with seven-week interims, devoid of any functional approach to the governance of the country they are busily destroying. It's not enough that people hate them - Democrats, Republicans and the few faux-independents all - now they want to flaunt their distrust of the body politic by surrounding themselves with sentinels and surveillance squads. Most people would prefer they simply went away. The growing movement among the populace is to ignore and avoid contact with any of them and their regulations, taxes, and policies as much as possible. One cannot lay the blame of the emerging curse of this reckless, feckless political class on the American people. The "uniparty" has long been planned and groomed from the inside by deep state operatives into what now has become a scourge upon the entire planet.
Getting back to the financial end of the ongoing drama, a partial government shutdown might force the hand of Treasury Secretary Bessent to impose emergency functions, including not paying certain bills and withholding payments to contractors. The longer a shutdown - even though one has always been considered more of a parlor game than an actual crisis - persists, the closer the United States comes to capitulation and defaulting on obligations.
It could become serious enough that treasury yields begin to spike, the most obvious would be in two-year and 10-year notes, the yields on which have been coddled and driven lower by faith-keeping buyers of U.S. debt, the most likely culprits the primary dealers and emerging stablecoin privateers.
What looks to be the beginning of a downdraft for the stock market may have had its birthing with the ringing of the opening bell at the NYSE on Monday by none other than disraced former presidential advisor Mike Waltz, who was kicked sideways by the Trump administration to become the U.S. Representative to the United Nations after being found complicit in group chat leaks concerning planned military operations. Rather than address the seriousness of the leaks and raise the bar of outrage, Trump downplayed the event, sending Waltz off to the U.N. gulag, where he has little influence and can cause almost no damage. Trump would rather see the U.N. dismembered for all its worth. Thus, Waltz's appointment is as ironic as it is relevant. His ringing of the bell on Monday, September 22, might as well serve as a signal to begin selling stocks in earnest, no tin-foil caps needed.
The NYSE takes the ring-a-ding-dinging of the opening and closing bells seriously. So much that they devote pages to it on their website as the "Bell Calendar" complete with videos of the ritual ringings. While Money Daily may be going out on a limb promoting a risk off agenda, but no more so than the howling media's near-constant streams of good tidings for small investors. It's useful to have some counterweight to overt propaganda. Ours is forged in silver and gold, which, notably, have been handily out-performing everything else for the better part of the past two years.
Whether or not our feckless leaders in Washington have plans to shutter the government for a while or not is not the most important issue presently. How to escape the entanglements they've entwined the country into and how to reform or replace the current government goons over the longer term would seem to take precedence. But, nobody thinks long term anymore. That's so 1950s. With the immediacy of media and focus on current issues, who has time for planning? Obviously not the 7-week-wonders populating the nations' capital. They're too busy framing the propaganda narrative that keeps Americans on the ropes, or on the dole, or on the rolling hate wagon.
It's working. Americans hate everything, including the very people they elected to fix things. According to recent polling, congress has an overall approval rating of about 20-27%, meaning there is roughly a quarter of the polling population that actually has been bribed enough to express an approving opinion of these lazy grifters.
The president is polling at about 40% approval and the direction of the country slightly less than that, around 35%. These polls change daily, depending on who's doing the asking and answering and the political flavor of the day. Mostly, polls are noise. Generally, people don't like politics or politicians and resent being fed a daily diet of them.
The United States is hurtling down a path of its own demise, aided by those at the top of the policy apparatus. Despite President Trump's insistence that the country is the "hottest" on the planet, the Braggart-in-Chief has a hard sell in front of him. Anyone taking the time to compare the U.S., and, by extension, Europe, with emergent Asian nations can clearly see the flow of capital, good manners, peace, justice, and common sense from West to East. Russian and Chinese cities aren't littered with homeless bums and drug addicts. If American cities are - a claim that is easily verified - how is one supposed to accept the "so hot" argument?
Trump's plans for a "golden age" for America appear to be little more than rhetorical limning for the MAGA camp. Even though he's had only eight months, outside of deportation efforts, most of his campaign promises have yet to be fulfilled. Gas prices aren't down, though they are stable. Food prices are definitely higher now than back in January. Ukraine and Gaza are still killing fields. American schools are broken. Tariffs seem to have produced, besides the revenue for the government, higher prices on fewer imports. Um, Epstein files? Let's not go there.
Meantime, Trump excoriates the rest of the world at the U.N., though one can give him a pass on this after the obvious attempts to sabotage his speech have emerged. Trump also tweeted out some kind of nonsense on Wednesday about Ukraine winning back the territories taken by Russia. Whether he's playing 6D chess or just trolling (probably the latter), it wasn't very gracious, accurate, or effective.
With a half hour to the opening bell, stock futures are down across the board. Dow: -118; NASDAQ: -171; -S&P: -31.
Gold is holding steady around $3,667, while silver topped out this morning at $45.37 on the COMEX and is hanging right around $45 per ounce.
Let's see where this goes...
At the Close, Wednesday, September 24, 2025:
Dow: 46,121.28, -171.50 (-0.37%)
NASDAQ: 22,497.86, -75.62 (-0.33%)
S&P 500: 6,637.97, -18.95 (-0.28%)
NYSE Composite: 21,483.48, -64.73 (-0.30%)
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