Happy President Madness Day

Dispense with the cheap attempts to divine the next president from price action. It’s a fool’s errand. There are tens of thousands of alleged professions running around, trying to hit this problem with the law of large numbers. They cannot agree on anything. When they do, it’s usually met with everyone’s polls getting blown out of the water.

The volatility in the polls is telling you something. It’s telling you the polls have been and will continue to be worthless. It’s been screaming that since March. It was screaming that in September. It’s screaming that now.

So now we’re resorting to zealots gambling on Intrade, chia pet head sales numbers, and baseball team superstition to try and “gain an edge.”

Meanwhile, our markets are ramping higher. Treasury yields are expanding, commodities are on the move, and everyone is being blessed with higher prices. Why does this have to do with the presidential election at all?

It’s almost the holidays, and black Friday will be here in just a few short weeks. Buying or selling because of one man getting elected is crazy, unless you have a damn good reason. Fleeing coal in an Obama presidency sort of makes sense, provided you think the EPA won’t eventually start getting mail bombs from the disenfranchised folks of Virginia. But this is only a very slim example of positioning with politics that may not be completely off track.

Generally speaking, the market is a freight train, and one jackoff does not move it. We have the good gentlemen and ladies of Congress, who are adamant about keeping their names in the history books good graces and their pensions fat, by accomplishing nothing.

And accomplish nothing they shall.

The presidential election is an excuse for behavior, not a driver. If we are going higher, it’s because Santa Clause is coming.