Not much is going on.
If I were lazy, I'd stop right there and that would be the morning report. Even Trump hasn't done anything new to piss me off this morning. He even confirmed yesterday's rant on Kushner's Saudi agenda by saying about the arrested Saudi Princes that "Some of those they are harshly treating have been 'milking' their country for years."
I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing….
One of those princes, keep in mind, is Rupert Murdoch's partner, Alwaleed Talal, who went against Trump during the election, tweeting:
.@realDonaldTrump
You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.Withdraw from the U.S presidential race as you will never win.
Well ha, ha, ha Alwaleed – now Trump is President and you are in jail and we are selling a ton of military equipment to your rivals in Saudi Arabia – how's that for petty vengeance? Do you think Putin is the only person who can interfere in foreign elections? NO ONE interferes with other countries like America – we are number one!
This is indeed a new era in politics as we used to keep it a secret when we used our influence overseas to elminate our enemies – now we tweet about and get 93,000 likes… Are we great yet? Trump also did not hold back while in Japan, shown here at his high-level meeting with Shinzo Abe but, right after the game, Trump lashed out at Japan's trade policies, saying:
“We want fair and open trade. But right now, our trade with Japan is not fair and it’s not open. The US has suffered massive trade deficits with Japan for many, many years.
Our Trade Deficit with Japan last year was $69Bn but we're 4 times bigger than they are yet we "only" buy twice as much of their stuff as they do of ours, economically, how do we make that "fair"? Should Japan buy 4x more stuff from the US and dump all their other Trading Partners or should we buy 3/4 less stuff and maybe ban Toyota and Sony in the US? As Trump said:
“Many millions of cars are sold by Japan into the United States, whereas virtually no cars go from the US into Japan…Try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over. That’s not too much to ask. Is that rude to ask?”
Of course, that statement was factless as Japanese automakers manufactured 4.2M cars and 4.5M engines in the US last year and Toyota (2.6M), Honda (1.6M) and Nissan (1.5M) combined sold 5.7M cars total so, essentially, they already build the vast majority of their cars in the US – about 50 times more than Tesla (TSLA) makes!
In truth, the whole thing is really a ploy to get Japan to buy more US Military equipment – that's what Trump is really there to sell and Military equipment is something Japan doesn't currently buy much of so they can "fix" the trade imbalance by arming up.
Trump is in Seoul today, less than 100 miles from Kim Jung Un and I can't wait to hear what nuggets come in today's speeches. Tomorrow he's off to Beijing, where I'm sure he will fix China's Trade Deficit too and then it's off to Da Nang and then Hanoi – for some reason spending two days in a country he worked hard not to visit when he was younger. Trump's trip concludes on Sunay in Manilla and then it's Mueller time next Monday…
Meanwhile, when the news is dull we play the technicals and, this morning, my note to our Members was:
Europe trending down since the open, /NKD rejected harshly at 23,000 (22,880 now) despite the strong Dollar (94.98) and that makes Dow (/YM) a fun short at the 23,500 line with VERY TIGHT STOPS ABOVE. Oil $57.50 is another fun short and /RB is already pulling back to $1.818 while /NG is rejected at $3.15.
We'll see what happens today but yesterday's BS story about Disney (DIS) buying Fox (FOXA) was typical of the M&A rumors that mark a market top – as fund managers try to stir up excitement in the sectors they are trying to dump.
Be careful out there.
