WEEKEND WRAP: Fed Delivers, S&P, NASDAQ Make All-Time Highs

With the FOMC decision Wednesday to reduced the federal funds overnight lending rate another 25 basis points, to a range of 1.50-1.75%, stocks took a the rest of decision day and Thursday to digest the news, then ramped stocks on Friday, sending the NASDAQ and S&P 500 to record closings and the Dow Jones Industrials and NYSE Composite near all-time highs.

While the third consecutive rate cut was able to reawaken some of Wall Street's animal spirits, it may be the last one for a while. Changing the wording in some parts of their statement, the Fed took on a more hawkish stance concerning rates going forward. Fed policy will remain data dependent, but not necessarily active. That didn't bother stock traders, who saw the opportunity to ignite what may extend into a holiday rally, and ran with it.

Wall Street's enthusiasm came a day after the US House of Representatives voted along strict party lines to make their impeachment inquiry against President Trump just a little more public than it has been up to this point, wherein Democrats, led by Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Adam Schiff, held secret, closed door depositions and heard hearsay testimony from various witnesses in connection with a phone call the president made to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky back in July.

The charges the Democrats have alleged against Mr. Trump may be scurrilous at worst and inconsequential at best, but that hasn't prevented the Democrats to continue to spread stories to their friends in the corrupt mainstream media to smear the president in the run-up to the 2020 election. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the resolution which formally enshrined the inquiry and expanded it to other committees.

Washington being thus rendered impotent as it wastes the taxpayer dime on ridiculous accusations and pointless investigations - along the same lines as the 2+ years of the infamous Mueller probe - it does give Wall Street some relief, understanding that the government will be introducing no new laws or regulations that might impede the current, long-standing bull run.

Elsewhere, outside the United States, the world is burning, either through popular strife in countries and places as diverse as Chile, Hong Kong, and Spain (Catalonia), or by economic policy, especially the brunt instrumentality of negative interest rates, in many European countries.

China's economic slowdown became an issue this week as well, demonstrating that the Chinese hard-line stance on trade negotiations with the United States is a charade. The Chinese government knows full well that it needs cooperation with its main trading partner, but insists on slow-walking any formal agreement. President Trump is well aware of China's condition and has maintained his equally-tough positions through whatever negotiations have been made or planned. China is eventually going to lose its grip and be forced to come to terms with the United States or risk popular uprisings of its own people.

Ignoring the background noise of geopolitics, companies continued to roll out third quarter earnings reports which were modest, but nowhere near disastrous. Additionally, US GDP came in at a stronger-than-expected 1.9% in the first estimate, and October job growth was muted, but well beyond expectations, delivering a non-farm payroll report that saw job gains of 128,000, following an upwardly revised 180,000 increase in September, easily beating market expectations of 89,000. Even though the BLS report is a damaged documentary on true economic growth, the trading community saw this as a positive one and responded accordingly.

Bonds rallied. The yield curve, having un-inverted in early August, continued to steepen, with the 10-year note at 1.69% on Thursday before closing out the week at 1.73%. The longer-duration, 30-year bond, which had fallen under two percent in July, and was being sold off until this week, rallied sharply, with yields falling from 2.34% on Monday to 2.17% on Thursday, settling on Friday at 2.21%.

Gold and silver were also bid, gold regaining the $1500 per ounce level and silver shooting beyond $18 per ounce.

The week ahead features more madness from Washington, a slew of earnings reports, including some popular names like Shake Shack, Uber, UnderArmor, Sprint, Hertz, Groupon, Mariott (Monday), Chesapeake Energy and Newmont Mining (Tuesday), Roku, CVS Health, Square, Humana, Qualcom (Wednesday), Teva, Planet Fitness, AMC Entertainment, Cardinal Health, Stamps.com (Thursday), and Duke Energy and US Concrete (Friday). The Walt Disney Company (DIS), a Dow component, reports Thursday.

Barring any unforeseen negative developments like bank runs (China), riots and street killings (Hong Kong), or desultory commentary on negative interest rates (Denmark), all appears to be smooth sailing through Black Friday, which approaches rapidly, just 19 trading days hence.

Happy Holidays? Too soon?

At the Close, Friday, November 1, 2019:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 27,347.36, +301.13 (+1.11%)
NASDAQ: 8,386.40, +94.04 (+1.13%)
S&P 500: 3,066.91, +29.35 (+0.97%)
NYSE Composite: 13,300.27, +128.46 (+0.98%)

For the Week:
Dow: +389.30 (+1.44%)
NASDAQ: +143.28 (+1.74%)
S&P 500: +29.35 (+0.97%)
NYSE Composite: +154.03 (+1.17%)

The following is dedicated to California Rep. Adam Schiff:

Stocks Try Rally, Fade Late; 28 of 31 Financial Institutions Clear Stress Tests

After yesterday's huge downbeat, investors and speculators were hopeful for some upside momentum, or, at least, a dead cat bounce.

Well, the cat bounced, but it turns out it was made of glass, as the major indices could not maintain gains, even though Europe was ecstatic over the second round of QE-Euro, with the ECB scooping up whatever dribs and drabs of debt they could find (liquidity is an issue).

One of the dullest sessions of recent memory was punctuated by bank stocks, which were mostly higher by one or two percent, in advance of the second round of Fed-mandated stress tests, which would determine the readiness of the TBTF banks to offer dividends and return to shareholders.

The results of the tests, released at 4:30 pm EDT, showed that 28 of 31 of the major financial institutions subjected to the Fed's nanny-ism, submitted capital plans that passed muster. The three which failed, were Santander, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, the last of which must re-submit its plan by the end of the third quarter.

Largely, the tests allowed those which passed to increase dividends and engage in the latest Wall Street scam, repurchasing of shares. To that point, Morgan Stanley (MS) will repurchase $3.1 billion of its own shares; other banks had similar ratios.

Beyond the moribund inter-workings of major financial institutions, what moved markets on the day were dollar strength and euro and yen weakness. The dollar is at its strongest valuation against other currencies in over a decade, while the Yen and Euro are hitting 12-year lows against the greenback. The euro is approaching parity with the dollar, trading in the 1.05 range.

Also of note was the first quarterly report of Wall Street darling Shake Shack, which is trading at some ungodly valuation like $700 million per store. The SHAK returned a five cent loss per share for its most recent quarter. Shake that.

Dow 17,635.39, -27.55 (-0.16%)
S&P 500 2,040.24, -3.92 (-0.19%)
NASDAQ 4,849.94, -9.85 (-0.20%)