The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago last night.
The aim was to take back classified documents that were removed from the White House but who knows what they will find there. “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you,” the Twitter account for the House Republican caucus wrote. So “Don’t take classified documents home with you from the White House” I guess is the GOP message?
You know what bothers me about Mar-a-Lago (which is up the road from my house)? If you are going to spend $100M for a place like that – why would you put it so far from the actual beach? Trump is one of those guys who lives near the ocean but never even looks at it. Even Nixon liked to walk along the beach, Trump doesn’t even go outside. That’s creepy.
Meanwhile, Micron (MU) is down 5% pre-market as they warn on both Macro factors and Supply Chain constraints but their Q4 revenue is expected to be be in the lower range of their initial guidance but Q1 and all of 2023 they seem very concerned about. NVDA and WDC also lowered their guidance last night.
That is sending the Nasdaq back towards 13,000 but there’s really nothing to be concerned about unless they fail 12,000 – then we’ll be very concerned.
Per the Fabulous 5% Rule™, we fell from 16,000 to 11,000 so the bounces are 12,000 and 13,000 (Primary Support was never tested) and pullbacks from the run from 11,000 to 13,500 (the mid-point) are 13,000 (weak retrace) and 12,500 (strong retrace) so nothing but healthy consolidation if we hold 13,000.
Meanwhile, Q2 Productivity FELL 4.6% after FALLING 7.3% in Q1 with output DECREASING 2.1% despite Hours Worked increasing 2.6%. WTF people? Maybe we should be going back to the office? This is the worst annual productivity since recording began in 1948.
Unit Labor Costs were up 10.8% vs 9.3% expected and 12.6% in Q1. Unit Labor Costs are up 9.5% over the past 4 quarters so, when you wonder why everything costs more – it’s your fault for not completing that last widget before lunch!
I personally pledge to do my part by writing 10% more words each day (and yes, these words count) in order to help America get back on track and lead the world in long-winded opinions. In the old days, writers used to get paid by the word and we ended up with Moby Dick, Don Quixote and War and Peace. Imagine if Dostoevsky had to come up with a tweet for the day?
“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”
― The Idiot
The S&P 500, for it’s part, is still bravely consolidating below its Weak Bounce Line at 4,160 and we are quickly running out of goodwill from the MACD lines so it’s this week or not likely to break over 4,160 and, if not, we’ll be testing 4,000 on the S&P along with 12,000 on the Nasdaq into expirations next week.
Oil popped back to $92 this morning – so much for getting back to $3 at the pump. There’s 42 gallons in a barrel so anything over $84 means the oil your gasoline is made from is $2/gallon and it has to be refined and delivered (and profited from) so no way to get $3 Gas when Oil is over $84 and that means no way inflation is going down meaningfully in Q2 – as we’re already six weeks into it.
We get July CPI tomorrow morning – that’s now likely to be worse than the 0.3% expected by our leading Economorons and that means more pressure on the Fed to keep the screws on the economy and so on and so on.
