THE ATTEMPTED COUP HAS FAILED!

“What a shmuck looks like up close & personal.”

What did we learn last week? First, we learned that the “palace coup” orchestrated by “team Chalky Soetero” and abetted by the New York Enquirer [a/k/a New York Slimes and New York Times to liberal elites] & WaPo failed miserably, as ex-head of the Federal Bureau of Incompetents, Shmuck James Comey, peed into the wind and hit himself. Not content with simply coming off as a complete liar & weasel “par excellence”, he managed to do some other incredible things as well; to wit, 1) prove to the entire world what a complete sack of bat guano Loretta Lynch is/was as Chalky’s front “hit woman” at the politicized DOJ as AG, and tried, SUCCESSFULLY I MIGHT ADD, to turn Comey into a spineless Squish over Cankle’s email server when he agreed to “change some words around”, 2) indict his “buds” in the MSM as complete liars and “fake news” hustlers that we all know elite media are, complete with a narrative and agenda that is all that matters, and 3) let the entire world know he’s a “LEAKER” … you know, the kind of person he has prosecuted in the past and sent to prison … but, Jimmy’s a “special leaker”, cuz he has feelings and is above the law, and somehow sees his leaks as morally “OK” … his political causes are morally justified cuz he’s “special” don’tchaknow? … I wonder if the “leakers” or people he was directly responsible for prosecuting “obstruction” that he put in prison felt they were “special”? “Martha Stewart, are you listening”?

Second thing we learned last week is just how F-ing rotten, maggot infested, stinks to high heaven, total festering swamp Washington, D.C. is, and how the political class of this country is totally unfit to run an F-ing hot dog stand, let alone a country. “The depths that people will go and sell their souls for money and power is simply breathtaking. The lying, double-dealing, blatant hypocritical scumbags who pretend to represent “the people”, and instead only represent themselves and special interests in either getting more power or more money, has gotten to the point where I truly wish I could wake myself up from the nightmare called America and tell myself it was just a bad dream. Unfortunately, it’s all too real”. And if you can’t see it, you either don’t want to look or can’t face the truth. Two Senators immediately come to mind; McCain (R-AZ.) who should be in an old folks home wondering where his green jello is with bananas in it, cuz he’s lost his mind, and Kamala Harris (Free Shit Party, CA.) who I’m sure thinks of herself as the female Chalky heir apparent someday sitting in the “Preezy” chair in the WH, who frankly is nothing more than a constantly outraged SJW, whose only qualifications are she’s female and black, which is all that matters in Libtard Nation. She’s the stand-in that replaced Babs Boxer, and the one Chalky thought was soooo attractive he mentioned it once. Yea, that babe; the one that got her mic turned off in the Mike Flynn hearing cuz she wouldn’t shut up and let the Assistant AG in the DOJ answer a question; it was nothing more than her attempt at the “Stalin show trial” games.

Third thing we learned last week, especially Friday, is that the NDX100 is not, in fact, an anti-gravity wealth machine. OMG, it can in fact go down! Who knew? But while the central planners let the inmates run the NDX100 prison for an hour or two on Friday, not to worry in the large cap Dow30 index, where the “Plunge Protection Team” showed up very late in the day [last hour], and not only put the brakes on selling, but gave a classic example of what happens when you’re convinced the market needs to crash and remain short while they ramp it up into the close. “I’m pretty sure you care about money & profits … NEWS FLASH: they don’t”.

This week, of course, sees its share of rampant D.C. stupidity cuz Fed Pie Holes meet to raise interest rates, all the while the U.S. economy & world economy go into the tank … cuz you know, they’re “data dependent”, right? And whatever … it’s all “TRANSITORY” anyway … [like pretty much everything] … so, come Wednesday, rates get hiked and everything can go to record-er-er new highs cuz … STFU and buy moar!

Turning to today’s market … “and suddenly, believers start to appear” … I note with amusement that overnight a Japanese Bank [Mizuho] has downgraded the world’s most religious stock … you know, Apple … cuz apple just isn’t a company, it’s a frickin’ religion … how else do you explain otherwise ordinary reasonably intelligent people over paying for their products with zeal? EXIT QUESTION: “Does the SNB know of this, or are they the only big bids in this behemoth that doesn’t know that maybe the tide is turning some, and that the next big sound you hear is traders and investors hitting the exit gate at the same time”?

Which is kind of interesting, in a historical sense, cuz just as the daily & weekly NDX100 chart has put in a massive, ugly looking, bearish engulfing pattern from all-time highs, within days the Faculty Lounge meets and raises interest rates to put the final nail in the coffin of overvalued, high priced tech stocks … it appears likely, that lightening may indeed strike twice in the same place, cuz almost 18 years ago in 1999, then head Pie Hole Alan Greenspan raises rates and starts the bloodiest Nasdaq bubble bursting ever seen. We’ll see, but remember, just because NDX100 gets slaughtered and taken out back to get shot in the head and dumped in the pig pen, doesn’t mean the SP500 & Dow30 will follow … in fact, I would argue, they may in fact rise as money comes pouring out of one area and into another … cuz, where’s the money gonna go? … bitcoin, gold, bonds? Seriously, no … it goes into other stocks.

Overnight some news more Spanish banks in trouble [maybe] … not much if any reaction cuz tell me something I don’t already know … markets a little lower, with NDX100 flirting sub 5700 as I write here at sunrise in the Caribbean. It looks like a lower open, but a lot can happen between now and 9:30 in New York. Don’t be surprised to see a pre-market rally in the Dow30 & SP500 from a few hours out to the open; it’s the usual BS “pump & dump” to get the institutional Chipmunks to “bite” [a/k/a buy] at the open at higher prices and then move them lower; NDX100 and Mizuho downgrade of Apple to be opening drags on prices and sentiment. It would be nice, though, to see a lower open and a move lower right out of the gate for the Dow30 … something we haven’t seen in a while to set the tone for a potential decent up afternoon. We shall certainly see.

I’m not really looking for much today & tomorrow in terms of absolute price moves in the Dow30, what with the Faculty Lounge interest rate decision on Wednesday; there could be bouts of “profit taking” [thank you CNBC Bob Pisani], but they will more than likely be brief and opportunities to buy. Unless NDX100 falls off a cliff [possible], it looks to be 2 days worth of chop into the interest rate decision at 2 P.m. on Wednesday.

First trade of the day directly below, thank you very much NDX100 getting crushed the catalyst; was a tenth of a second late hitting the button, but liquidating I got very near the high. As I have stated before, these first trips lower I almost always treat as scalps; and once again today, for like the umpteenth time in a row, the first leg down [and subsequent double bottom test with three white soldiers back up] has proven to be the low so far today. Range of the day is still relatively small, given 1) tech volatility sharply increasing, and 2) increased rotation into blue chips. I’m thinking there’s no way this can hold, but we’ll see.

I’m pretty sure the “Plunge Protection Team” is not going to allow any of the 3 major U.S. indices to fall off the proverbial cliff either today, tomorrow, or Wednesday up to 2 P.M.; can you picture the headline flashing, “STOCKS PLUMMET, FED SET TO RAISE INTEREST RATES”! Yea, me neither. But it still seems to me that the definite increased skittishness and subsequent increase in volatility of the market limits the upside without some kind of defining break to new lows that shakes some complacent longs out of the tree via some sell stops.

Overall, the trade is vastly better than we have seen the last couple of weeks … a lot more movement. Let’s hope this keeps up and stays. It’s after lunchtime here in NY, and since the opening 45 minutes of good action, the market has died into its old habit of drifting aimlessly around the level I originally liquidated at, which is the 21230 area. I’m hoping we can get new lows during the Chicago Noon hour, cuz we all know what that means. While I wait for something to happen, I can’t help but chuckle at the speed of the traditional investment community the last couple of days in trashing the NDX100, and how all of a sudden … “well, looky here Ma, them experts says we should sell out of our fruit company” … Citi, JPM. Goldman, Mizuho, and God knows who else are hitting the ariwaves and internet financial sites with their downgrades … amazing coincidence they all come at the same time isn’t it?

It’s now 2 P.M. in NY, and the Dow30 is giving us its best interpretation of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie plot line; who dunnit, and everybody is on the edge of their seat. The Dow30 sits only within a dozen or so points from the day’s low, and with very little , if non-existent, buying power in the market, the question is what happens when the central banks adjust the bids lower … where do they draw the “new” line? Cuz from where I’m sittin’, it doesn’t look like anybody is getting bluffed by the bids for higher prices, and it doesn’t appear to me shorts are nervous; especially the NDX100, where a trip lower still is very much possible if not probable. More stops are down below, and the street will find a way to get them by “hook or crook”, whether they have to do it at night via pizza & beer in Squid HQ, or in the daytime with everybody around for the fun; they’re gonna get hit off.

I’m not surprised by the way the market is trading today, I’m more surprised by the small range; these century marks in the Dow30 on the downside always have stops right beneath them, and I’m sure the central banks are protecting them from getting executed and creating more downside pressure. More than likely we’ll see more of this tomorrow, where I expect trading conditions to really thin out going into Wednesday, where up until 2 P.M. it will be “sleepytime”. EXIT QUESTION: “Are new lows coming later today after 2 P.M., or do the central banks protect the downside”?

It’s about half an hour to the close, and while I would have liked more trades today, especially with a slightly larger expanded range, and of course higher profits, the market gives us what it gives us, and to “push the envelope” is unwise; it’s always about the “setup” and nothing else, and when you concentrate on market setups versus price levels and technical analysis, you go a long way to being consistently profitable in the stock indices. It’s really that simple. As we limp towards the close, the market seems tired and dead in the water; we got our answer for afternoon trading, and the central bank bids remain, thus we see no action. It’s “Onward & Upward”.

PAMM spreadsheet directly below.

Beach time! … the dog and I are outta here … until tomorrow.

Have a great day everybody!

-vegas

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