United States

Conceived several years ago, "buy the (fucking) dip" was a joke among traders seeking to explain the market's nearly-instant upward mean reversion, which as we have alleged since 2009, has been pushed higher by central bank policy and various HFT strats. Since then it has, sadly, become perhaps the only "explanation" for the behavior of the most bizarre market traders have ever encountered.

Luckily, the buy the dip quote-unquote "market" may be about to end, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, if Bank of America is right.

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Federal Courts Say Foreigners, Not US Citizens, Are Entitled To Due Process

Paul Craig Roberts

The US Constitution applies to US citizens, and the amendments known as the Bill of Rights guarantee due process as a protection of US citizens’ civil liberties. That’s the theory but not the practice.

FIAT Drainage Has Begun

Vince Lanci for MarketSlant.com

Gold will meet head winds as the world continues to hedge most of its  uncertainty with flights to the USD. Unless that uncertainty abates, it must in the end spread all the way to the US. This will happen regardless of what you think of Trump's policies. Trump may accelerate or slow the inevitable. But Government can only slow or speed up market clearing events. They cannot stop them. 

One day after South Korea press reported that US special forces, including a Delta Force team and the infamous SEAL Team 6 are participating in local drills, practicing the removal of Kim Jong-un as well as the infiltration and destruction of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction, North Korea threatened the US with "merciless" attacks if an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson, which is currently taking part in joint South Korean drills "infringes on its sovereignty or dignity", Reuters reported on Tuesday.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom,

it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,…”

Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities

I'm back -- Chris

This week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee is being set up in the financial media as a contest between the anti-inflation tendency led by Fed Chair Janet Yellen and the pro-growth forces led by President Donald Trump.  Would that it were so.