Stocks Dump on Anniversary of Black Monday; Silver Buys Much More Chicken Than in 1960

On the 33rd anniversary of Black Monday (October 19, 1987), stocks didn't drop by 20% or more as they did on that fateful day, though there was a level of trepidation not seen in recent market action. After a lull in September, the major averages have been rising over the past two to three weeks.

For sure, Monday's market action left plenty of dip buyers holding a bag of pain, as gains were wiped out in waves of lower highs and lower lows as stocks stair-stepped their way to a distressing close.

29 of 30 Dow stocks closed in the red, led by:

AAPL, Apple: 115.98, -3.04 (-2.55%)

JNJ, Johnson & Johnson: 144.32, -3.78 (-2.55%)

MSFT, Microsoft: 214.22, -5.44 (-2.48%)

AXP, American Express: 102.47, -2.44 (-2.33%)

The only winner of the bunch was Intel (INTC), which closed at 54.58, up 0.42 (+0.78%).

As usual, the financial news pundits trotted out the same tired excuse for stocks losing steam: continued failure of congress to pass a stimulus bill.

Now, this most recent of Washington's foibles has been a steady-state comedy of errors since mid-July, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin first began negotiating for a second major coronavirus bailout. For the duration, Pelosi's been pushing for a bigger price tag and including money for states and municipalities, schools, and other pet projects while Mnuchin and the White House favored a much smaller expenditure.

The two sides keep inching closer to a deal, with the latest ploy by Pelosi being a demand that an agreement be reached by Tuesday, which just happens to be today. Accordingly, the newspeople are reporting that the two sides are "close to a deal," a position they've bandied about twice as often as being "far apart."

Blaming the demise of the stock market on the inability of politicians to reach agreement on the size of a stimulus bill is the height of folly. It's akin to blaming the manufacturer for your 12-year-old car's performance when your tires are bald, the oil hasn't been changed in three years, and the half of the fuel injectors are plugged.

In other words, there may be other reasons for stocks to go up or down outside of what the nitwits in the nation's capitol are doing, or not doing.

Here are some other possible reasons for stocks to lose value:

Unemployment is very high

Coronavirus fatigue

Concerns over electing Joe Biden president

Concerns over electing Donald Trump president

Many schools are closed or only partially open

Cities are facing budget deficits (New York, Chicago, others)

Protests, riots, looting by leftist groups ANTIFA and BLM

Stocks are overpriced

Record federal budget deficit

Record trade deficit

Slumping GDP

Corrupt politicians

Corrupt media

Censorship by Big Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter

Consumer price inflation

Lack of trust in government

Wall Street's V-shaped recovery looks more like an "L" on Main Street

Taken together, those issues would make a normal person want to crawl into a hole and wait until it all passes, but these issues are at least as concerning to some traders and fund managers as a government stimulus bill.

Besides, if the stock market is pinning its hopes on a stimulus bill, having the federal government go deeper into deficit by bailing out everything from airlines to schools to cities to restaurants to you and your neighbor, doesn't that indicate that there may be deeper problems facing the stock market and the general economy?

For some perspective, here's a mind experiment on the value of silver.

Silver and gold aren't going to the moon, as some suggest.

Think in terms of purchasing power. Currently, an ounce of silver is worth about $32 (probably more, see this link for a survey of recent actual sales on eBay).

Let's say a 6 pound roasting chicken (yum) is $8, or $1.33 a pound. (it's usually cheaper, but stick with us here). Right now, you can buy four of those with a one ounce silver coin or bar. OK, you can eat for a couple of weeks.

With inflation, that same chicken may be $2.00 a pound, or $12, in six months, so $32 will only buy two of them, plus a 4-pound fryer.

The ounce of silver will still buy four, and probably more, unless, of course, the mendacious futures marketeers are allowed to suppress the price as they have been for decades in order to keep fiat ($US dollar) the circulating currency.

For reference, chicken was 29 cents a pound in 1960, when silver was still a circulating currency. A six pound chicken cost $1.74, or seven Washington quarters (you'd get an all-copper penny back). That's more than an ounce of silver. There's actually 1.2659 troy ounces of silver in 7 silver Washington quarters, so you couldn't even buy one chicken with an ounce of silver, when today, 60 years later, you can buy four. Four chickens in 1960 would have set you back 5 ounces of silver. Today, that same five ounces will buy you 20 6-pound chickens. On this basis, silver has improved its purchasing power five-fold while the purchasing power of the US dollar has declined in a corresponding fashion.

A six pound chicken in 1960 set you back $1.74. Today, it's $8.00.

That means silver is actually worth much more today than it was then, in real terms (chickens). This illustrates how the dollar has been losing value and will continue to do so. Silver is a long-term investment in real money. This example proves it to be also a worthwhile store of value.

The Fed didn't know how good they had it, both when they conspired to take silver out of circulation and when they started printing money willy-nilly to boost the economy (and the price of everything).

A 401k or an IRA is a trap, tying up fiat currency for decades while its value declines. Silver (and gold) is salvation from inflation.

At the Close, Monday, October 19, 2020:
Dow: 28,195.42, -410.89 (-1.44%)
NASDAQ: 11,478.88, -192.67 (-1.65%)
S&P 500: 3,426.92, -56.89 (-1.63%)
NYSE: 13,018.51, -150.81 (-1.15%)

WEEKEND WRAP: Presidential Politics, Biden, Social Media Scandal Dominate

On the surface, stocks put in a mostly positive five days, with three of the four main US indices ending the week in positive territory. Only the NYSE Composite suffered a loss.

It appears as if Friday's trading was extended, all of the bourses would have joined the NYSE in negative ground as the final hour was all selling, perhaps spurred by smart money exiting the equity markets in anticipation of the weekend's re-pricing of $80 trillion of loans and derivative contracts form LIBOR (London InterBank Offered Rate) to SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate), a result of the manipulation of LIBOR during the sub-prime crisis of 2007-09.

Since the resetting of interest rates on trillions of dollars worth of loans and derivative contracts isn't an ordinary practice, this weekend's reset has been nicknamed the "Big Bang" as banks and financial institutions around the world hope to make the transition a smooth one. The vast majority of these contracts are over-the-counter derivatives held by banks, ostensibly between two contract partners, but about five percent of the total $200 trillion notional are business loans, floating rate notes and bonds, securitizations, and consumer loans (credit cards, car loans, personal loans).

How this all plays out will be closely guarded by the participants, but could show up in differences in rates on some mortgages and consumer loans.

While some people have become apoplectic over the change, it's likely that nothing earth-shattering will result. Still, there is some trepidation that this event might lead to some overflow turbulence in other markets, particularly, stocks and bonds. Thus, some people were likely selling late Friday to avoid possibly being left out in the open with their pants down on Monday morning.

Otherwise, the week just ended was dominated once again by presidential politics as the November 3rd date with destiny crept closer. With less than three weeks in the monumental election race between President Donald J. Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the rancor reached a fever pitch when damning evidence of Biden's son, Hunter's, involvement in Ukraine politics - implicating the senior Biden as an influence peddler - was reported by the New York Post and subsequently squelched by social media giants, Facebook and Twitter.

The story, which involved emails and photos from a computer supposedly belonging to Hunter Biden that was left at a Delaware repair shop and never picked up, gained traction in the alternate media but was completely ignored by the mainstream, to which proponents on the right claimed foul.

Twitter accounts of the NY Post, Trump's campaign, Trump press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany and others were shut down on Wednesday, though most of them were restored by Thursday. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey issued a couple of thinly-worded apologies, neither of which satisfied congressmen and senators who rang the alarm over first amendment protections and sought to bring Dorsey and Facebook CEO in for hearings on the matter.

By the weekend, following Thursday night's dueling presidential town halls (Trump on NBC, Biden on ABC), the mainstream, including the major networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox, remained mum on the story, despite the attempted censorship by their cohorts in the social universe. The censorship of these explosive allegations and evidence of wrong-doing by Biden while he was Vice President under Obama (2009-2016) was so egregious it could not be readily contained. Unless one were living under a rock, the story made the rounds to the public nonetheless.

More revelations have followed from Hunter Biden's hard drive and elsewhere, and the mainstream media's reluctance to even acknowledge their existence shows how partisan and biased these giant media companies are and poses a serious threat to democracy and to the welfare of the United States.

Outside of politics, earnings were the focus on Wall Street, as banks posted third quarter results, noting the usual record-setting trading profits and the unusual, severely slashed loan loss provisions. Apparently, the banks aren't gearing up for a spate of bankruptcies, mortgage defaults and credit card delinquencies stemming from the coronavirus and associated lockdowns, business closures, and various state-by-state restrictions.

In congress, the Senate was occupied with confirmation hearings of Trump Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, while Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi continued to spar over stimulus proposals. On Saturday, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced that the senate would take a standalone vote on more funds for the Paycheck Protection Program Tuesday, followed by the main relief bill, including, ostensibly, $1200 checks for most Americans, money for states and municipalities, relief for the airlines, and other measures on Wednesday. Estimates vary, but it's assumed that McConnell's bills will amount to less than the $1.8 to $2.2 trillion being bandied about by the administration and House operatives.

Treasuries saw little movement. Yield on the 10-year note fell three basis points to 0.76%, while the 30-year dropped six basis points to 1.52%.

Price for a barrel of WTI crude oil continued to hug the $40 mark, dipping as low as $39.43 (Monday), but gaining through the week to close out at $40.88.

Precious metals were lower, primarily due to another raid on the futures Tuesday which brought the price of gold down from $1922.77 to $1891.36. The price finished the week at $1899.29 on Friday. Silver was victimized as well, losing just under a dollar on the spot market, to 24.16.

Premiums for deliverable, physical gold and silver remained high. Latest prices for common items on eBay are as follows (numismatics excluded, shipping - often free - included):

Item: Low / High / Average / Median
1 oz silver coin: 28.00 / 43.95 / 37.91 / 38.20
1 oz silver bar: 28.00 / 45.05 / 35.49 / 34.40
1 oz gold coin: 1,950.00 / 2,108.82 / 2,018.20 / 2,026.65
1 oz gold bar: 1,903.70 / 2,019.73 / 1,996.39 / 2,000.08

Obviously, buyers of small physical gold and silver items aren't quite buying into the derivative-based prices generated by the futures market. Of particular note this week was the US Mint's jacking of the price of its flagship silver eagle to $67.00, along with significant price hikes (30-60%) on other silver products. The mint's move may explain the extraordinary premium price rise in silver eagle auctions on eBay and by dealers.

At the Close, Friday, October 16, 2020:
Dow: 28,606.31, +112.11 (+0.39%)
NASDAQ: 11,671.56, -42.31 (-0.36%)
S&P 500: 3,483.81, +0.47 (+0.01%)
NYSE: 13,169.32, +32.07 (+0.24%)

For the Week:
Dow: +19.41 (+0.07%)
NASDAQ: +91.61 (0.79%)
S&P 500: +6.67 (+0.19%)
NYSE: -83.30 (-0.63%)

The Crash That Wasn't: Thursday's Rally Explained

At the Close, Thursday, October 15, 2020:
Dow: 28,494.20, -19.80 (-0.07%)
NASDAQ: 11,713.87, -54.86 (-0.47%)
S&P 500: 3,483.34, -5.33 (-0.15%)
NYSE: 13,137.25, -5.92 (-0.05%)

This morning, the normal "at the close" piece attached to every Money Daily post has been moved to the top of the page instead of its normal position at the bottom to illustrate, clearly, what happened on Thursday, when futures suggested a major selloff in the cash market.

Let's take a look at the lows of the day:

At the LOWS, Thursday, October 15, 2020:
Dow: 28,181.54, -332.46
NASDAQ: 11,559.10, -209.63
S&P 500: 3,440.89, -47.48
NYSE: 12,960.98, -182.18

Yes, the major indices were down roughly 1 1/2 percent at the lows. What happened?

First, understand that those lows were made - on each market, in unison - within minutes of the opening bell. Conversely, on the other side of the daily chart, the highs of the day were reached roughly 10-15 minutes before the close. In other words, "you got played."

Not that this is an isolated incident. As a matter of fact, erasure of losses happens all the time on US stock exchanges, and has been occurring repeatedly since then-President Reagan signed executive order 12631, on March 18, 1988, establishing the Working Group on Financial Markets, commonly referred to as the Plunge Protection Team, or PPT.

The PPT was established in the aftermath of the 1987 crash, a one-day global sell-off that happened on October 19. That date is referenced around Wall Street as "Black Monday." The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost nearly 22% on that day; the S&P was also down more than 20%.

For many years, mere mention of the "Working Group" or PPT would elicit jeers and laughter as its existence was considered high humor and conspiracy theory. It wasn't until February 23, 1997, when a Washington Post staff writer, Brett D Fromson, coined the term "Plunge Protection Team" as the headline of an article in the Washington Post detailing how the "Working Group" was designed to function.

New York Post financial writer John Crudele, former congressman Ron Paul, among others, have used the term openly and frequently since then. It's now common knowledge that the PPT exists and that it prevents market crashes by buying futures contracts.

Apparently, the PPT sprang into action right at the opening bell Thursday, as markets were crashing, not because negotiations on a stimulus bill were stalled out or that coronavirus cases have been rising. Those stories have been used as scapegoats for every market slip since July. Thursday's crash was set off by the New York Post story detailing some of the contents of one of Hunter Biden's - son of presidential candidate, Joe Biden - computers, and the swift censorship of same by Twitter and Facebook.

If the wheels were coming off the great "blue wave" Democrat sweep narrative because it's figurehead, Biden, was being exposed as a crook, liar, bribe-taking dirty dealer, then the Deep State's dream of a new world order might be coming to a quick and premature end.

Once the market opened and the social media giants made it clear that the story would not be allowed to circulate through their platforms, the PPT had its marching orders or really, really smart money started buying and kept buying all day as it became clear that Facebook, Twitter and the mainstream media would not make mention of the article or any of the subsequent articles from the Post (which had its twitter account locked) or mentions of it by President Trump's campaign team (ditto) or anybody else.

So, there you have it. Americans are being played, not just by the media or lying politicians, but Wall Street hucksters who make their plays in the futures market and move money in the cash market. It's like an elaborate game of three-card monte in which the brokerages owned by the biggest banks are the dealers and the general public are the marks. The scheme relies upon computer algorithms that respond to headlines promulgated by their allies in the mainstream media. Some of it works automatically, to make markets and individual stocks go in whichever direction they please, despite fundamentals, earnings, p/e ratios and tools like that which used to help determine stock prices and real value.

No more. Those days are over. Today's stock markets are controlled by unseen forces beyond the ken of most wizened traders or analysts. It's a new ball game. The PPT is part of it. The meida is another cog in the wheel, and in the end, nothing happens without the whirring sounds of computer fans at server farms in New York and New Jersey pushing HFTs (High Frequency Trading) through the system formerly know as "markets."

These aren't markets any more. They haven’t been markets in any traditional sense for a long time, at least since the GFC of ’08-09 and likely earlier. These are control mechanisms, deep state constructs designed to influence public behavior, stifle awareness and shunt free thought. Think you can beat the market? Do you have trillions of dollars available at a moment's notice from the central bank? They do, and you can't possibly win unless you play their game.

The alternative is to not play at all, a position that’s becoming increasingly popular as institutions become monolithic oligarchies and individual freedoms are beaten to the curb.

It’s not for everybody, but it’s at least an option.

Revelations Of Joe Biden's Ukraine Dealings Blow Away 'Blue Wave' Market Theory

Like it or not, the American public, the sleazy politicians in Washington DC, the corrupt media are going to get four more years of Donald J. Trump shoved down their throats starting November 3rd.

This is thanks to the careless, feckless, cavalier attitude of the Democrat opponent, Joe Biden, his campaign handlers and especially his son Hunter, whose clumsiness allowed sensitive communications to fall into the hands of a computer repair shop owner, because he was too reckless or thoughtless to remember to pick up the three computers he dropped off months earlier.

Brought to light by none other than America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, the exclusive by the New York Post, the story of the Bidens is one so rich in irony and scandal that those bastions of unfree speech and censorship, Facebook and Twitter, chose to try to hide it from the peering eyes of the public.

Their efforts to suppress the truth - possibly the most egregious display of censorship ever witnessed in the United States - served as clear and conclusive evidence that Big Tech companies that manage the information flow of the country have been in the bag for the Democrats and Joe Biden throughout the election process.

It is not the duty nor the intent of this blog to convey the entire story, but only to point readers seeking the truth in the correct directions, providing a cursory overview of a saga that is only going to grow more astounding over the coming days and weeks leading up to the election. The Biden exposé is too deep and too broad to be adequately conveyed in one post, or even a series. Money Daily likes to stick to financial affairs, not affairs of state. We’ll leave it to others in the alt-media universe to inflict appropriate damage.

In a nutshell, the story of Joe and Hunter Biden and their dealings with Ukranian officials and the Burisma energy company signal the death knell for the Biden-Harris ticket. The election is now essentially over because it's become so glaringly obvious that former Vice President Biden, like his chief, former president Obama, is nothing more than a pay-for-play, corrupt politician straight out of the Hillary Clinton model. Anybody even considering casting a ballot for this nefarious criminal is now required to check their morality at the polling station door. If nothing else, these revelations - along with other misdeeds so rabidly suppressed by the social and mainstream media for years - will drive Democratic voters away from the polls and away from the party.

All other Democrat candidates are guilty by association, automatically. Biden's gaffes, slack mental acuity, criminal activity, and slip-shod laziness is not only going to cost him the election, but it offers the real possibility of swinging the Senate and House races to the Republicans.

With less than three weeks to the election, with early voting already underway, this story is not going away and a massive Trump landslide victory is all but assured, despite the worst efforts by the mainstream and social media - and the pollsters - to swing opinion to the Democrat side.

This story, which broke only yesterday, will have ramifications for the election and well beyond. Even at the first glance, markets on Wednesday began to slide. On Yahoo Finance, the headline blamed the decline on a quip from Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who opined for the umpteenth time that a stimulus bill was unlikely before the election. Behind the scenes, editorial effort was being made to hide the effect of the Biden revelations, even as early as 10:00 am, when the sell-off became pronounced. The 'Blue Wave' theory that had been bandied about by slack-jawed internet media had crashed upon the shoals of corruption and scandal.

A Biden presidency, which was supposedly going to be great for the economy and Wall Street, had been exposed as as yet another fraud from wishful-thinking hack journalists who support higher taxes, socialism, hand-outs, corruption and criminal behavior which is endemic, not only in politics, but in finance, as has been evidenced over the years.

Even this Thursday morning, as stock futures are collapsing, Yahoo Finance headlines put the blame on Mnuchin and the coronavirus. They can't mention the Biden revelations because they can't handle the truth, but that's what's really tanking the markets and is likely to continue doing so.

The "Blue Wave," resurrected from Clinton's failed 2016 campaign is just another liberal fantasy designed to make people think Democrats are leading in the (oversampled and about to be proven wrong again) polls and are good for the future of America. The truth is that there is no blue wave, there never was one in 2016, and any investment pundits or advisors pushing this narrative are prevaricators of the highest order, stealing money and minds with their baseless investment theories.

Wednesday's smallish losses were just the appetizers. The main course will be served Thursday, after it's revealed that another 800,000+ people filed initial unemployment claims and the Biden cover-up continues unraveling into the weekend. By the time Meet the Press airs Sunday morning, there's either going to be a pronounced denial and cover-up by the media or a full-blown manic conspiracy theory denial. Neither will work. And the COVID scare, in which a not-so-deadly virus shut down the global economy for months and is doing so again in Europe at the behest of wrong-thinking socialist leaders over there is also failing to pass the smell test, the PCR test, the false positive test.

Exposing Joe Biden as a criminal bribe dealer and threat to the security of the United States is only the tip of the iceberg. That these stories are coming out now is no accident. Donald Trump's strategy to expose the swamp creatures in the Democrat and Republican parties is just getting started, which is why the effort to censor and suppress this information is so magnified. Four more years of a Donald Trump presidency may put many corrupt politicians and businesspeople out to pasture and maybe behind bars.

The following are sources by which readers may discover the truth for themselves. The mainstream media isn't going to do anything but offer denials and call everything "conspiracy theory" because they are counting on American voters to be blind to the truth as voting gets underway.

This blog can only lead readers to the fountain of truth. It cannot make them drink from it. That's a choice each individual must make.

New York Post
The Liberty Daily
Red State
Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense
Conservative Treehouse

Here's Rudy Giuliani laying out more damning details, promising more to come.

Giuliani, a former prosecutor who used RICO statutes to bring down crime families in New York and New Jersey, knows the terrain and will be like a rabid pit bull with expose´s right up to the election and hopefully, beyond.

Lastly, here's Tucker Carlson laying out the details of Twitter and Facebook's censorship:

Here comes the second wave. Not of the virus, but of stock market chaos.

At the Close, Wednesday, October 14, 2020:
Dow: 28,514.00, -165.81 (-0.58%)
NASDAQ: 11,768.73, -95.17 (-0.80%)
S&P 500: 3,488.67, -23.26 (-0.66%)
NYSE: 13,143.16, -68.79 (-0.52%)

Up, Down, Sideways? Which Way Is The Stock Market Headed?

About the only thing certain about equity markets recently is uncertainty.

Nobody knows who's going to be president in three weeks time, nor can anybody adequately discern whether Democrats or Republicans will hold majorities in the House and Senate.

Will protests re-appear if Trump wins? What if Biden wins? There remains the issues which the protesters insist to be at the core of the looting, burning and rioting: systemic racial inequality and oppressive police forces.

Then there's the COVID crisis. Like the old Memorex audio tape commercials, people are asking, "is it real or is it a scam-demic?" Cases are up in some places, down in others. Vaccines look promising one day, not so hot the next, and who's going to take them when they do become available? There are other treatments available, and, by the time a safe vaccine is developed, the coronavirus may have run its course, mutating into something more like the common flu than the Black Plague.

Will we have a second wave of the virus, and will states decide to shut down again or "tough it out" this time?

Are schools open, closed, virtual? And is virtual learning as good, if not better, or worse, than traditional classroom instruction?

The politicians in Washington seem reluctant to pass another stimulus bill prior to the election, but will they continue to dither over details afterward?

Is the economy good, bad, worse, better, the same, and how does it matter? Are jobs coming back or have many gone away permanently?

While these are just top of mind issues presently, there are more underneath and over the top. It's well known that stock markets despise uncertainty, though they've shown a great resilience over the past six months, though much of the rise in stocks can be directly attributed to the Federal Reserve, which has had the money spigots open to full volume. To be fair, while stock markets loath questioning times, traders love the volatility, as adroit stock adherents are able to make positions and trades based on momentum, sentiment, money flows, political events, and just about anything other than fundamental analysis.

So, will stocks continue to rise back toward record highs or will they gravitate to the depths of the February-March crash? Getting that equation right could mean the difference between making one's way to Easy Street or wholesale wealth destruction.

There are admittedly more variables than answers, and while the squeamish will settle for somewhere in between a rally and a crash, that's not a coherent strategy for making hay, or money.

About the best the high-minded can come up with these days is a "it depends..." analysis, which leaves everybody right where they are most uncomfortable, in the dark. Volatility remains elevated. Bank stocks are currently reporting third quarter earnings and they're all over the map. JP Morgan beat by a lot, Citi, by a little, Bank of America, which reported prior to the Wednesday open, beat on the bottom line, earning 51 cents per share, but misfired on the top, as net income fell to $4.9 billion, from $5.8 billion and 56 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

Goldman Sachs smashed expectations, with profits for the three months ending in September pegged at $9.68 per share, more than double the $4.79 posted over the same period last year and well ahead of the Street consensus forecast of $5.57 per share. Goldman, like JP Morgan and Citi, slashed its provisions for credit losses to just $278 million. Bank of America raised theirs to $1.39 billion from $779 million in the prior quarter.

These credit loss provisions are tiny, considering the depth and scope of the coronavirus crisis. Apparently, banks don't see much risk associated with overdue rents, unpaid mortgages, credit card and auto loan payments that have been deferred until a later date, and student loans which have been put on hold. Either that, or they're just not realizing the losses now and more reserves will be set aside in future quarters. They may even believe their own narrative that the stock market is actually a leading indicator and it's forecasting a brighter future.

A rosy outlook may be well and good, but investors aren't buying it. All the bank stocks were lower on Tuesday, and they're looking for a repeat performance Wednesday. Bank shares were hit hard in the February-March crash and most have not returned to levels prior to that. In fact, the banks with high retail exposure - Bank of America, Citi, and Wells Fargo - are much closer to the March lows than the prior, February highs. Wells Fargo is actually trading below its March 23 low of 25.25. It closed Tuesday at 24.74 and this morning posted its first profitable quarter of the last three, earning 42 cents a share in the third quarter, two cents below forecasts. It is selling off in pre-market trading.

The airlines are kaput. Delta (DAL) posted a $5.4 billion loss in the third quarter, following an even bigger second quarter loss. United Airlines (UAL), which showed a $9.31 per share loss in the second quarter, reports after the closing bell. The estimate is for -$7.44. Ubelieveably, the airline stocks are slowly rising as hope for another government bailout is also.

You might as well throw darts at a page of stock quotes amid all the confusion and cross-currents. Staying out of the markets seems an advisable strategy - one that is a standard for CNBC's Jim Cramer during earnings seasons - until election day.

But, what happens then?

At the Close, Tuesday, October 13, 2020:
Dow: 28,679.81, -157.71 (-0.55%)
NASDAQ: 11,863.90, -12.36 (-0.10%)
S&P 500: 3,511.93, -22.29 (-0.63%)
NYSE: 13,211.95, -112.93 (-0.85%)