Stocks Start Fourth Quarter Off Like Rocket Launch

Borrowing a phrase from Buzz Lightyear from the Pixar movie, Toy Story, US equity markets are on a trajectory to "infinity and beyond," blasting off the fourth quarter with massive gains based entirely on the notion that it's the beginning of a new quarter.

That mindset alone - that there's always a good reason to follow the herd and buy, buy, buy, has propelled stocks for the better part of the last nine years. While that has been a boon to monied investors and the big brokerages, it's also been a gentle salve to the collective psyches of pensioners, at least those of the present and future beneficiary class.

This is a familiar cry during manias, booms, and bubbles which eventually become scorned, busted and bursted. The laws of physics and the loose interpretations of economics cannot be unilaterally undone by the stock markets, no matter how much help is - or has been - given by the Fed and other central banks.

Increases in the prices of stocks at the tail end of a long bull market - and this is the second longest in history - need to rationale. To a large degree, they are driven by their own momentum and the rush to "get in" or "get more" by the captains of fantasy known widely as investment advisors.

At this juncture, prices will probably continue to rise until something finally snaps. What the snap will be, or when it will occur, is the great unknown. For the time being, there still seems to be nothing to derail the freight train to wealth and riches that is the US stock market.

Nothing.

At the Close, Monday, October 2, 2017:
Dow: 22,557.60, +152.51 (+0.68%)
NASDAQ: 6,516.72, +20.76 (+0.32%)
S&P 500: 2,529.12, +9.76 (+0.39%)
NYSE Composite: 12,264.84, +55.68 (+0.46%)

Stocks Start Fourth Quarter With Losses

Whether or not this blue Monday proves to be ominous for equity investors in the newly-birthed quarter will be proven out over the coming weeks and months, but the roller coaster ride the major indices have taken the past few months have proven only that the market is confused, somewhat directionless, and hopelessly overvalued.

Just a little push in the downward direction could spell doom for stocks, but hopes are high for Hillary in the election and a continuation of the crony capitalism that spells M-O-N-E-Y for Wall Street.

So rigged is the game in the canyons of lower Manhattan that most CEOs, professional fund managers and just about anybody with any skin in the game in down with Clinton and more of the same, despite the fact that Mr. Trump is a born and bred New Yorker, a businessman and a hard-driving deal-maker.

The system is so collapsed, it is fast approaching a condition that puts it in need of serious surgery rather than simple triage.

Considering the up-and-down cycle of what passes for markets in America, today's little dip into the red probably will amount to nothing, and that's a non-cynical point of view.

Welcome to the fourth quarter.

Monday's Miss:
Dow Jones Industrial Average
18,253.85, -54.30 (-0.30%)

NASDAQ
5,300.87, -11.13 (-0.21%)

S&P 500
2,161.20, -7.07 (-0.33%)

NYSE Composite
10,689.47, -32.27 (-0.30%)