1. Andrew Luck retired. My thoughts are that this really just sucks for everyone. It sucks for for Luck. It sucks for the Colts, it sucks for Indianapolis. I actually don't think that Luck comes back to football. I think he will struggle to find his second act, but he did graduate from Stanford with a degree in Architectural Design Engineering, so I doubt he will have trouble finding work.
2. Trade War escalates, de-escalates, then escalates, but maybe not, but maybe, who the hell knows. Our stock market moves 2% based on tweets from either the POTUS or state media in China. The 10 year USD Bond dropped to 1.45% last night. Sucks for that guy who would have made $40M if it hit 1.45% on Friday, but it didn't. Futures were down over 300 points last night, then Trump tweets early this morning (he is in Europe) and the futures are up 250, basically about a 600 point swing on a tweet. I don't think this goes away. China's best time for the best deal with US is spring 2020. That's when POTUS has most pressure and the most to gain. So I think it will be a wild ride until then. So lets unpack this. Does China want to come back to the table? They probably want a deal, but I don't think they are making the first move. I think this is Trump worried about a rough market and losing his election, so I think he may delay tariffs. Is that smart? Yes. It keeps the US market treading water (most other countries are really starting to struggle and could pull the US down as well). This is one of my frustrations with the Tribalism in politics. Very few Americans want the extra tariffs. So if Trump delays them, the left will call him a coward. The left and the media are going to rip him no matter what he does. I guess that's fine. I get it that Trump is a crazy mofo who makes snap decisions, tweets like he is your crazy uncle. However, when you are one sided that you rip everything he does OR praise everything he does, you look equally crazy OR like a little b!tch. What do I think Trump should do? There was a commentator on CNBC on friday who I kind of agree with, don't target China directly, but target their companies you worry about, basically Huawei, ZTE, etc. But that's also where you need your allies. You need EU, Canada, Australia, the Americas to help block or hinder Huawei's global reach. Once those countries build their new communications infrastructure with Huawei components, they are screwed, they can't block Huawei anymore (Looking at you GERMANY). If China retaliated against US companies, they wouldn't have chipsets or operating systems. Also, Apple and Google can handle it, they have hella cash on hand. That sounded like a smart idea. Unfortunately, that commentator wasn't in Trump's ear. So what about the rest of the fall.
3. What do I expect this fall? I expect a crazy volatile market. We have a lot of potential ups and downs. I expect Hard Brexit to happen. I expect Fed to cut rates. I expect business investment to plummet, so maybe more stock buy backs. The good news for businesses is that they can build up cash reserves because taxes are much less. Maybe bankruptcies won't be as bad and we can handle a slow economy for a while. II see more problems in Asian and Europe economy fundamentals with their liabilities for their aging population benefits and declining work forces and I think that's starting to hit NOW. Germany has several quarters of contraction, they are approaching recession and other EU country central banks rates are screaming the same thing. What does this mean for the US? It means a really strong dollar. So sorry farmers, your harvest is going to be a rough one. I would start doing contracts on your harvest NOW. It's going to be a rough year.
4. Mizzou season prediction. I am going out on a limb here and I am going to predict an 11-1 record. Right now, if I set lines for every game, I would have Mizzou favored in 11. Florida looked like a dog licking his balls for 4 hours. They had no business winning that game. In fact, if Miami hadn't missed that FG, they win that game. Good news is that I bet the second half over, so at least I got paid. I don't even think that Florida will be the closest line in a game that Mizzou is favored. (I don't think Felipe Franks is the starter for Mizzou game either). I think the closest line for Mizzou will be the game at Kentucky. Odom has lost the close games, but he is also a young head coach. Mizzou has had some bad luck and hasn't gotten hardly any turnovers. I think that changes a bit this season. I plan on going to Georgia game. Hopefully my prediction is correct and Mizzou is undefeated going into that game and in the top 10. I think Mizzou's rushing offense will help out the defense a ton. Obviously this goes out the window if there is a major injury (Bryant, Garrett, AlbertO, Jordan Elliot) or multiple big player injuries. Now the bad news. I don't think Mizzou's punishment on the bowl ban is over turned. I think some of the other restrictions are lessened, but that's it. I find it hard for the NCAA to explain changing those and not the bowl ban, but it's the NCAA, so I expect them to make a punishment that makes no sense whatsoever. We had this argument that NCAA needs to lessen against Mizzou to show they will mitigate penalties if a school cooperates, well the NCAA now can point to Miss State penalty, so they don't need Mizzou for that any more.
5. POTUS 2020:
An Economist Poll came out late last week that had Biden up only 3 points, basically falling back to the pack. There were polls earlier in the week that had Biden up 14, so I can't put a ton of stock in just one poll, but something to watch. I don't think Biden is slipping. I think 30%+ of Dems are pro-union, but not pro GND and not pro Medicare for All and not pro Make College Free. And I think they all get behind Biden. We had 3 drop outs last week. Jay Inslee, Hickenlooper, and Seth Moulton (who da fuq). It's really a 3 horse race, Biden, Warren, and Sanders. I think the Media doesn't want Warren or Sanders as their tax plans, etc., would hurt a lot of media advertisers. I have already seen some WaPost hate towards Warren and Sanders. I think the media wanted Harris, but she just keeps fading back.
2. Trade War escalates, de-escalates, then escalates, but maybe not, but maybe, who the hell knows. Our stock market moves 2% based on tweets from either the POTUS or state media in China. The 10 year USD Bond dropped to 1.45% last night. Sucks for that guy who would have made $40M if it hit 1.45% on Friday, but it didn't. Futures were down over 300 points last night, then Trump tweets early this morning (he is in Europe) and the futures are up 250, basically about a 600 point swing on a tweet. I don't think this goes away. China's best time for the best deal with US is spring 2020. That's when POTUS has most pressure and the most to gain. So I think it will be a wild ride until then. So lets unpack this. Does China want to come back to the table? They probably want a deal, but I don't think they are making the first move. I think this is Trump worried about a rough market and losing his election, so I think he may delay tariffs. Is that smart? Yes. It keeps the US market treading water (most other countries are really starting to struggle and could pull the US down as well). This is one of my frustrations with the Tribalism in politics. Very few Americans want the extra tariffs. So if Trump delays them, the left will call him a coward. The left and the media are going to rip him no matter what he does. I guess that's fine. I get it that Trump is a crazy mofo who makes snap decisions, tweets like he is your crazy uncle. However, when you are one sided that you rip everything he does OR praise everything he does, you look equally crazy OR like a little b!tch. What do I think Trump should do? There was a commentator on CNBC on friday who I kind of agree with, don't target China directly, but target their companies you worry about, basically Huawei, ZTE, etc. But that's also where you need your allies. You need EU, Canada, Australia, the Americas to help block or hinder Huawei's global reach. Once those countries build their new communications infrastructure with Huawei components, they are screwed, they can't block Huawei anymore (Looking at you GERMANY). If China retaliated against US companies, they wouldn't have chipsets or operating systems. Also, Apple and Google can handle it, they have hella cash on hand. That sounded like a smart idea. Unfortunately, that commentator wasn't in Trump's ear. So what about the rest of the fall.
3. What do I expect this fall? I expect a crazy volatile market. We have a lot of potential ups and downs. I expect Hard Brexit to happen. I expect Fed to cut rates. I expect business investment to plummet, so maybe more stock buy backs. The good news for businesses is that they can build up cash reserves because taxes are much less. Maybe bankruptcies won't be as bad and we can handle a slow economy for a while. II see more problems in Asian and Europe economy fundamentals with their liabilities for their aging population benefits and declining work forces and I think that's starting to hit NOW. Germany has several quarters of contraction, they are approaching recession and other EU country central banks rates are screaming the same thing. What does this mean for the US? It means a really strong dollar. So sorry farmers, your harvest is going to be a rough one. I would start doing contracts on your harvest NOW. It's going to be a rough year.
4. Mizzou season prediction. I am going out on a limb here and I am going to predict an 11-1 record. Right now, if I set lines for every game, I would have Mizzou favored in 11. Florida looked like a dog licking his balls for 4 hours. They had no business winning that game. In fact, if Miami hadn't missed that FG, they win that game. Good news is that I bet the second half over, so at least I got paid. I don't even think that Florida will be the closest line in a game that Mizzou is favored. (I don't think Felipe Franks is the starter for Mizzou game either). I think the closest line for Mizzou will be the game at Kentucky. Odom has lost the close games, but he is also a young head coach. Mizzou has had some bad luck and hasn't gotten hardly any turnovers. I think that changes a bit this season. I plan on going to Georgia game. Hopefully my prediction is correct and Mizzou is undefeated going into that game and in the top 10. I think Mizzou's rushing offense will help out the defense a ton. Obviously this goes out the window if there is a major injury (Bryant, Garrett, AlbertO, Jordan Elliot) or multiple big player injuries. Now the bad news. I don't think Mizzou's punishment on the bowl ban is over turned. I think some of the other restrictions are lessened, but that's it. I find it hard for the NCAA to explain changing those and not the bowl ban, but it's the NCAA, so I expect them to make a punishment that makes no sense whatsoever. We had this argument that NCAA needs to lessen against Mizzou to show they will mitigate penalties if a school cooperates, well the NCAA now can point to Miss State penalty, so they don't need Mizzou for that any more.
5. POTUS 2020:
An Economist Poll came out late last week that had Biden up only 3 points, basically falling back to the pack. There were polls earlier in the week that had Biden up 14, so I can't put a ton of stock in just one poll, but something to watch. I don't think Biden is slipping. I think 30%+ of Dems are pro-union, but not pro GND and not pro Medicare for All and not pro Make College Free. And I think they all get behind Biden. We had 3 drop outs last week. Jay Inslee, Hickenlooper, and Seth Moulton (who da fuq). It's really a 3 horse race, Biden, Warren, and Sanders. I think the Media doesn't want Warren or Sanders as their tax plans, etc., would hurt a lot of media advertisers. I have already seen some WaPost hate towards Warren and Sanders. I think the media wanted Harris, but she just keeps fading back.
