GET YOUR CRASH HELMETS READY: MARKETS SET TO GAP LOWER

The god damned Russians are finally getting what they deserve: sharply lower share prices. The days of elaborate and ornate evening balls are over for the oligarchs in Moscow. The RTSE is down a staggering 3.9% now. Over in europe, cuckholds are getting beat the fuck down, led lower by the losers in Spain and Germany, off by 1.4% and 1.1% respectively. Here in the states, the tech wreck continues, with NASDAQ futs off by 63.

The issue of sharply lower crude prices may begin to take a toll on markets soon. Keep your eyes on HYG and JNK to see if lower crude spills over into the junk bond market. Lord knows it should and it will. Any notion of corporate credits under pressure is certain to ruin your trading day, unless of course you’re short.

We have a bad scenario in risk off land, thanks to the Fed. Both gold and bonds are lower, the former sharply, due to yesterday’s hawkish statements by the Fed. Along the same vein, the dollar is higher by 0.5% v the euro. We have a scenario, gents, where nothing and no one is safe — a real fuckery brewing just ahead of hedge funded summers in the Hamptons (extra cocaine).

It’s setting up to be a real dreadful day. Good morning!

Where are all of the scholars and intellectuals on the left, leading the vanguard of liberalism — showing republitards that their way is the better way?

Instead, we get Eric Clanton, the bike lock guy.

A sundry of shrill comedians, cloaking hatred behind jokes.

NYC plays in the park, depicting Trump being stabbed to death.

ANTIFA rioters, beating up people who they disagree with.

The eloquent Mark Steyn, an extremely talented columnist, offers his 2 cents on the subject — describing a political environment bereft of decency.

A global sell off is underway, in light of rumors that Mueller is going to investigate the President for obstruction of justice. Clearly, the acrimony is having an obtuse effect on the cocaine addled money managers on Wall Street — who are on the precipice of taking a few month’s off to summer near a beach or cool breeze — mountainside.

Asia is getting lit on fire tonight, led by fidget spinning fuckheads offing their shares. Hong Kong is lower by 0.9%, Australia -1.32%, China -0.71% and Japan -0.41%.

Nasdaq futures are down 35. Gold is down 0.7% on news of Yellen tightening. And the speculative bubble in cryptocurrencies is collapsing now, with both Bitcoin and Ethereum down by more than 10%.

For the week, however, it’s worth noting small caps have performed well — in line with my personal portfolio. After small caps, treasuries are higher by 1.32% — leading the risk averse crowd to safety.

Generally speaking, tech has been bearing the brunt of the sell off, namely semis. There is a rotation underway, but it’s subtle and not entirely actionable.

On Friday, I will be adjusting my portfolio again — which has been crushing the SPY, in a measured way, over the past 5 weeks. This year, I am going to approach the market in a systematic fashion, using only Exodus to provide me with strategies, adhering to strict rules — all in the name of alpha.

I intend to take this a step further, with our next upgrade of the software, leading to the eventual grande opus upgrade which will come in late 2018. For now, however, the lot of you will have to make due with unparalleled mean reversion tools, a great community of traders, and picks from both myself and Ragin Cajun.

Ann Coulter thundered on the Mark Simone show today, in light of recent events — calling out the left for fomenting violence — all stemming from their refusal to accept the election results on November 8th, 2016.

“Hillary Clinton, the opponent, has announced she’s joining ‘The Resistance’, the resistance Mark Simone — a militaristic term. If Trump has lost the election and later turned around and said that ‘I am joining the resistance’, that would be a dog whistle for the militias, the right wing fascists, and in fact, we have left wing armed, masked, going around in groups, beating up conservatives, police being told to stand down, so that the left can beat up conservatives.”

Coulter then talked about actor Scott Baio, who was attacked last week at his daughter’s school last week for being a Trump supporter as being a minor occurrence in the larger scheme of left wing violence against conservatives, saying “that’s minor compared to the hospitalization, the blood, this is not just a bloodless coup that the left is pulling off through the bureaucracy, the democrats, and mostly through the media…but they are trying to incite violence against both Trump and his supporters.”

Touching on the appointment of Robert Mueller, Ann pointed out that he had hired ‘a bunch of never Trumpers’, ridiculing Rod Rosenstein and the ‘hundreds of lawyers’ at the DOJ for recusing himself from such a minor case, in terms of scale.

“What there’s some huge conflict with Rod Rosenstein? He can’t oversee that investigation? No, the whole point of this is to put a never Trumper within the executive branch to make sure that Trump is prevented from ever fulfilling the promises that he made that put him in the White House.”

Our dear friends at the Washington Post received another leak today, this time alerting us to the fact the esteemed Robert Mueller, the man both sides of the aisle has praised for his impartiality and impeccable integrity, will be investigating the President for obstruction of justice, in light of the firing of James Comey.

This news, delivered to us from the denizen of Jeff Bezos, happens to fall on Donald Trump’s birthday. Couple this with the GOP baseball field shooting, and the left have delivered a set of birthday gifts of a lifetime. After all, what do you get the man who has it all? A fucking impeachable investigation.

Mueller is interviewing as early as this week three top intelligence officials as part of the probe, the Post reported, citing “five people briefed on the requests.”

The three officials the Post says Mueller is interviewing are Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Richard Ledgett, the recently retired deputy NSA director.

It is the most significant sign that Mueller’s investigation is extending beyond questions of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The news came the same week as Trump friend Chris Ruddy floated the possibility that Trump would fire Mueller, who was appointed to head up the investigation after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, immediately condemned the Post report.
“The FBI leak of information regarding the President is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal,” Corallo told CNN.

The NSA said in a statement that the “NSA will fully cooperate with the special counsel. We are not in a position to comment further.”
A spokesman for the DNI declined to comment to CNN.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, hinted broadly that the special counsel investigation could be looking at Trump during a House committee hearing on Tuesday. When asked about a letter he wrote recommending firing Comey, Rosenstein said that Mueller could be looking into the decision-making process for the firing — and he was therefore “not at liberty to talk about that now.”

Mueller has been tasked with leading the executive branch’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any potential collusion between Russia and Trump associates.

Mueller met with Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner, the Republican and Democratic leadership of the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday.

This is amazing. The fact that this guy kept a camera running the whole time is a testament to his autism.

What we know about the shooter and the motive so far.

1. He was an avid Bernie bro.
2. He hated Trump and called him an ‘asshole’ and a ‘traitor.’
3. He was a big fan of the left wing media, particularly Rachel Maddow.
4. He was radicalized by the media to believe in the Russian fairy tales being spun in DC.
5. In a recent Facebook post, he declared “It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”
6. On March 24th, a neighbor called the police after hearing Hodgkinson fire off 50 shots in the nearby woods.
7. In 2006, he was arrested for pistol whipping a man and firing one shot in the air.
8. The alt-left is unhinged, violent, and should be monitored by the FBI.

2006 mugshot

Markets blew off the Fed hike and subsequent remarks, in spite of the fact that the Fed seems to be following the ruinous path of Allan Greenspan.

Former bond king, Bill Gross, warned of the hawkish Fed statements, saying it is ‘negative for the housing market’ — saying the Fed shouldn’t go higher than 1.5% given the inflation outlook. He thinks the market should begin to take notice of the fact that the Fed is promising something it cannot deliver.

Fed Chair Yellen is going to destroy your way of life. The Fed hiked rates by 25bps again, in spite of a very weak economic backdrop — sending shockwaves through the market. The Nasdaq is now deeply in the red, off by 35.

FED RAISES RATES, MAINTAINS FORECAST FOR ONE MORE HIKE IN 2017
*FED SAYS IT’S `MONITORING INFLATION DEVELOPMENTS CLOSELY’
*FED SAYS KASHKARI DISSENTS IN FAVOR OF KEEPING RATES ON HOLD
*FED SAYS IT EXPECTS TO START SHRINKING BALANCE SHEET THIS YEAR
*FED MAINTAINS BALANCE SHEET REINVESTMENT, LAYS OUT UNWIND PLAN

Source: Bloomberg

RATES: Target range for fed funds rate was raised to 1%-1.25% from 0.75%-1%; decision included dissent from Minneapolis Fed’s Neel Kashkari; rate increase is third hike since December 2016

RATE OUTLOOK: Keeps reference to gradual pace of future rate increases, continues to say fed funds rates is likely to remain below expected long-run levels “for some time” and actual path of rate will depend on outlook

INFLATION: Says inflation on 12-month basis will stabilize around 2% over medium term, but is expected to stay somewhat below 2% in near term; said inflation excluding energy and food is running somewhat below 2%; Still says that FOMC will monitor inflation developments relative to its “symmetric goal”

ECONOMY: Fed now says economic activity has been rising moderately this year vs prior assessment that it has slowed; continues to say U.S. labor market has continued to strengthen and now calls solid job gains as having “moderated”

REINVESTMENT POLICY: Fed deletes prior language that said it will keep existing reinvestment policy in place until normalization of fed funds rate “is well under way”; also removes reference to FOMC’s holdings of longer-term securities staying “at sizable levels”

RISKS: Near-term risks to outlook still appear “roughly balanced” as FOMC monitors inflation developments “closely”

It’s important to note, for the sake of posterity, the Fed is raising rates as retail and oil and gas stocks collapse in value. This could end up being an important factor for markets in the future, because the Fed is raising the borrowing costs for industries both maligned with debt and under duress.

Here are the year to date losses for some key industries.

Department stores -38%
Oil and Gas Exploration -31%
Apparel stores -24%
Independent oil and gas -22%

Here is the full FOMC statement.

According to the BLS, US inflation decreased by 0.1% in May vs an expected increase of 0.2% and has been running under 2% for years. I see no reason for hiking rates, other than to hurt economic activity.

They’re all heroes now, actual fucking heroes. Here is Rep. Mo Brooks and Senator Flake recalling the harrowing events when they had to hide out in a dugout, as a raving fucking mad Bernie Bro sniped at them from above.

Riveting.

This is a classic risk off trade. The smaller caps are off by 0.7%, WTI is hammered to the tune of 3.7%, following inventory disappointment, lending to a feverish rally in bonds.

Ten yr yields are getting hammered, down 9bps.

Perhaps in response to the shooting near DC, a hardened risk off trade is underway — perceptibly visible by dollar weakness.

WTI

Gold

On the equities side, small caps are getting hammered, while utes are higher.

What’s the lesson here? Construct diversified portfolios that aren’t designed to resemble lottery tickets. My model has me in 20% cash, 5% GLD, 5% TLT, and a slew of equities in difference sectors — all adhering to fundamentals that appeal to me.

For the day, I am up by 0.28%.