With the holiday season in full swing, Wall Street made up for lost ground on Tuesday, sending all the indices higher on promises for no peace and ill will toward other countries, which kind of goes against the biblical rendering, "peace on earth, good will toward men."
Most of the world is at Defcon 1 or 2 by now, getting ready for World War III, which Europe, the UK, and the United States appear to be intent on starting.
Meanwhile, Steve Witcoff and President Trump's son in-law, Jared Kushner, have traveled to Moscow, negotiating terms of their 18-28 point peace plan with Russian president Putin. Word has it that negotiations went deep into the evening, past midnight, and that the talks were "constructive", which is a media dog whistle for "we got nothing." This is the same messaging that was issued over the weekend from the meetings in Miami with officials from Ukraine. The whole "peace deal" is just plain bunk, made for media spin. The war in Ukraine will end when Russia completely wipes out the Ukraine's armed forces, which is happening on a continuous basis. Figure by June or sooner, Russia will own all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper River.
In the meantime, NATO and friends have been targeting oil tankers which are supposedly carrying Russian oil, a big no-no from an American perspective but also not something of which Mr. Putin is very fond. Russian pipelines and energy facilities have been under heavy assault the past few months. This is apparently how the West negotiates. With explosions and targeting Russia's energy infrastructure. That should work out just fine for the comedy team of Witkoff and Kushner.
Also, sooner or later, the U.S. is going to invade Venezuela, for their oil, not because they traffic drugs, as we've been told. These people are insane.
So, stocks should go up because, um, America, yeah!
Elsewhere, whether you believe last Friday's CME outage was real or a devious ploy to hide severe stress in the silver market, the usual suspects were back at work, sending the price of silver on the globex down from $59 to $57.53 in a matter of an hour right around midnight ET. Silver is gaining as the sun rises over Wall Street, trading just above $58.
Around the same time, gold received similar treatment. At around 7:30 am ET, gold was trading just above $4,200 per ounce.
The continuing suppression effort by the LBMA, CME, COMEX underlings, Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), and/or anybody else, has become something of a running joke to serious investors. Everybody knows what they're doing, and everybody also knows that the jig is just about up. The rising price of gold and silver at various rates of change in different countries is not that gold and silver are becoming more valuable, it's that the currencies used to purchase them are losing value. Yen, yuan, euros, dollars, pounds are basically becoming toilet paper.
Gold and silver endure. Get some soon, because today's prices - even at or near all-time highs - are going to look ridiculously cheap in the not-so-distant future as the entire facade of Western prosperity and productivity meets the reality of the emerging BRICS nations. Western economies are deeply in debt and unable to escape the clutches of inflation and boom-bust cycles. The stock market cannot go up indefinitely, though it appears that the money behind the gains of the last five years, at least, aren't yet satisfied.
There's money to be made in stocks. That's for certain. How much is a matter of investing acumen, timing, and capital willing to be employed. With the Fed all but certain to cut the federal funds target rate by 0.25% next Wednesday, stocks should see solid gains between now and then and probably beyond. There just isn't any kind of anchor in the system. Nothing seems to shake the confidence level of the confidence men or the back room antics of the string-pullers.
Nobody with a functioning brain dares short this market, so the upward slope is practically guaranteed. What might it take for the markets to correct? Who knows? Wall Street manages to spin every bit of news - good or bad - into a positive for stock ownership.
So, why worry?
Maybe because the narrative doesn't quite match reality. AI hasn't produced any significant scientific breakthroughs, any significant increase in knowledge or productivity, or any other tangible result beyond writing pretty good high school and college term papers and enhanced porn. Big tech companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars on a technology that is unlikely to ever produce positive ROI.
Then, there's bitcoin and the crypto con. Since November 22, bitcoin has gained from a low of $84,000 to over $93,000 this morning. That's all well and good and the crypto bros are once again touting "new highs, soon, real soon," and other rubbish. Bitcoin and most of the other popular copies are still 25-30% down from recent all-time highs. For all intents and purposes, crypto remains in a bear market.
What's even more concerning about bitcoin and crypto in general is that it serves no useful purpose other than providing a means to soak up excess liquidity and fund illegal activities. It's not a store of value or a viable means of exchange. Bitcoin and all the other "coins" are just speculations. Eventually, like fiat currencies, they will be worth little if anything.
Not that it matters much, but, this morning, the November ADP employment report registered a loss of 32,000 jobs in the month, missing expectations of +40,000 by a mile and well below the +47,000 upwardly-revised from October.
According to Dr. Nela Richardson, Chief Economist, ADP:
Hiring has been choppy of late as employers weather cautious consumers and an uncertain macroeconomic environment. And while November's slowdown was broad-based, it was led by a pullback among small businesses.
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
Normally, the ADP report presages the BLS Non-farm Payroll report issued the first Friday of each month, but, according to the ever-efficient federal government bureaucrats, the November report has been delayed until December 16 and will include partial data from October. Well, isn't that special? After the FOMC meeting (December 9-10).
Moving on, Money Daily did a little investigating on Trump Accounts after Michael Dell and his wife pledged to put $250 into 25 million Trump Accounts, for a total contribution of $6.25 billion. Americans have about 3.6 million births a year, so over four years time, that amounts to 14.4 million. In order for the Dells to reach the $6.25 billion target, the US birth rate would have to pretty much double, and nearly every parent of a child born during the eligibility period would have to open a Trump Account.
As usual, the hype overshadows the reality.
Q: Should you open a Trump Account if you have a baby born on or after Jan. 1, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2028?
A: Not until you read the 44-page notice the IRS has prepared. Nobody can open a Trump account until sometime next year. Contributions to Trump Accounts cannot be made before July 4, 2026. The IRS is still in the process of creating Form 4547, which has to be filed when opening a Trump Account.
The federal government will supposedly make a contribution to eligible Trump Accounts in the amount of $1000. It's free money, but the beneficiary of the account - your kid - can't touch it until they're 18. The money has to go into a bank or other non-bank custodian trustee acount and be invested in either mutual funds or ETFs. The contribution limits are $5,000 a year. After the beneficiary turns 18, any distributions are taxed as ordinary income.
Here's a thought: How about, instead of dealing with the government, banks, taxes, and the stock market, you buy $1000 worth of gold, silver, baseball cards, and comic books, store them in a safe place (like an actual "safe") and don't tell anybody? Then, you can add to it whenever you please, spend it whenever you like, do whatever you want with it. If that sounds easier and more desirable, it's because it is.
Some people may have a problem with this latest vote-buying-stock-market-pumping scheme. The $1,000 that will be donated by the government to each account is taxpayer money, or, rather, about 60% taxpayer money and about 40% borrowed from the Federal Reserve. Did anybody ask American taxpayers if they wanted their money spent this way? No.
Beyond that, the money, including any contributions made by parents, grandparents, or anybody else, goes into the system, is tracked, then eventually taxed. As usual, the government has plenty of hooks into the whole thing and is tied to Wall Street investment banks who will be getting a nice boost from these accounts which can't be touched for 18 years. Talk about building a floor under the stock market!
Here's a prediction. No more than 5 million Trump Accounts will be created, and the money invested in them will vanish, just like in the famous South Park episode.
Stock futures are pointing to a positive open. Go get 'em.
At the Close, Tuesday, December 2, 2025:
Dow: 47,474.46, +185.13 (+0.39%)
NASDAQ: 23,413.67, +137.75 (+0.59%)
S&P 500: 6,829.37, +16.74 (+0.25%)
NYSE Composite: 21,650.48, -15.98 (-0.07%)
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