For all of the hand wringing over the weekend regarding the various deadlines covering trade, shutdowns, and the U.K., this was not the most exciting session we've seen. And that's probably a good thing.

One thing we did see was that late surge that has been running the market higher in the last few minutes of trade on a nearly everyday basis. Today, this was most noticeable for the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000, but not the Nasdaq Composite. To me that means that maybe dollar strength had a little something to with it. That's why the Dow Industrials lagged.

One group of industrial-type stocks actually roared today. That was the transports, more specifically the rails. Despite softer oil, which usually would hurt the group, the market reacted well to Norfolk Southern (NSC) resetting the company's financial targets. Media represented the weakest group on the day. Volume remained pedestrian.

Away from equities, U.S. paper sold off mildly. The 2/10 spread now stands at about 16 basis points. The 2/5 spread remains inverted. Most commodities (not natural gas) struggled versus the still rising greenback.

It's been a blast, gang. As always, I appreciate you allowing me to work in Doug's stead when he is otherwise engaged.

Til next time, my friends.

Stocks are sort of meandering this afternoon. The media group is a little weaker than the rest of the market. Not really weak enough to add. If I see a discount and I will buy a few Disney (DIS) or 21st Century Fox (FOX) or (FOXA) , I have FOX in the portfolio.

Money Flow, and the daily MACD looking a little soft with 40 minutes to go. Don't forget, that five or six minute surge that we have been seeing as we approach the close a few times a week of late.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS) landed another contract this morning for unmanned drone technology. As usual. More information cannot be made public. Earnings due in two weeks.

Price Target: $19
Add: $14.75
Add More: $13
Panic: $12.50

Or is it central banking?

I know that you noticed the fact that Chinese mainland equities came back from the Lunar New Year with a bit of gusto. The Shanghai Composite picked up a cool 1.36% in Monday trade. This came after China's commerce ministry released some impressive data. Impressive for anyone but China, that is.

Apparently, during the holiday week that is a very big deal in Asia, retail sales grew 8.5% from the comparable period in 2018. Tourism revenue increased by 7.6% year over year. Those numbers look quite robust until observers realize that respectively, these two data-points slowed from growth of 10.2% and 12.6%.

The real signals on trade to me would be the record $9 billion that foreign investors pumped into Chinese equities throughout January. This would signal to me that global investors now either expect Presidents Trump and Xi to play ball, or they simply think that the Fed is done for now, and that in itself will throw emerging markets economies something of a life raft.

The Financial Times reported on Monday morning that Morgan Stanley expects inflows into Chinese equities from foreign accounts to fall into a range spanning from $70 billion to $125 billion for the full year.

So what now? Buy some Alibaba (BABA) ? Buy some iQIYI (IQ) ? Hmm, maybe. For now, I'll stick with Tencent Music (TME) .

If you follow me, then you know that I have been hot on Zuora (ZUO) all year, actually longer than that. The name that I feel will benefit as the subscription economy works it's way toward consumables as well as manufactured or even durable goods will in my opinion finish the year stronger than where it has come from. 

Today's Trade (minimal lots)

Add: 100 shares of ZUO equity (last: $20.38)

Sell: one Jan $15 put (val: $1.75)

Sell: one Jan $12.50 put (val: $0.97)

Sell: on Jan $35 call (val: $1.20)

Net basis on trade: $16.46 should all options expire worthless.

It's not that we knew the level would work last week. It did not have to work. We just had a hunch that the algo crowd had grown so lazy in a game that they no longer found challenging that the low-hanging fruit would be what they grabbed for. Yes, a few of out equity indices had pierced the level, but the S&P 500 is "the market" when traders speak. Nobody refers to the Nasdaq Composite, nor the Russell 2000 when they say the market was up or down so many points. There are a still a few who refer to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in that way, but that's force of habit and this instances are becoming fewer and fewer.



You'll also notice the 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) hit the 70 level at the precise time that the index smacked up against that 200-day simple moving average (SMA), so was it live or was it Memorex? Was it algorithmic recognition of a level written into a majority of their code, or was the index simply overbought technically? Probably a little of both.

Good news on China, this level will be lucky to get a crack at providing short-term support.

Bad news on China? Bad news on a shutdown? Yeah, you see that 2585 Fibonacci level? You won't be looking down at it.

Taking short-term profits across BP plc (BP) Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A)  and Exxon Mobil (XOM) , and a small loss in Chevron (CVX) ... I did not time that one as well. These are all part of my "exposing oneself to growth trade while getting paid to do so in the form of dividend yield."

My intent is to not lose the gains made overall over the past six weeks in these names. I do plan to add all of these shares back at lower prices if my evil plot comes to fruition.

If they don't come in, then I'll have more cash on hand. Much worse things have happened to much better people.

Just before the opening bell chimed at 11 Wall Street on Monday morning, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) kissed the 97 level. This sure wasn't how it was supposed to be. Down went oil. Down went gold, and way off of what was an optimistic looking open came equities. A weaker British Pound was in response to a much weaker monthly print for GDP in the UK. The Japanese Yen was also soft ahead of that country's GDP number this Wednesday.

Let's not forget that last week the Reserve Bank of India shocked markets by reducing benchmark interest rates. Though it hurts domestic investors, exporters, and U.S. multinational corporations, can anyone really see a case for a softer U.S. dollar at this point? Even if a trade deal with China does happen, the Chinese economy actually needs to improve on the rate of growth, a clearly defined outline for Brexit must take shape, the Bank of Japan needs to actually see higher inflation, and Italy needs to not drag Germany into recession.

I think perhaps the best we can do from here is embrace the fact that as the cleanest dirty shirt in the hamper, the U.S. currency is going to behave as a safe haven versus the pack. That will not improve the above mentioned trade condition, but it will raw international investment across U.S. borders precisely when the Fed is not on bid at auction. There almost always is a silver lining.

I alluded to this in Market Recon this morning. I think the question persists, however. Can one trust the trend?

Santa was kind this year, coming off a quarter, but really in earnest it was a December for equity investors to forget. The charts tell a story. Confirmed uptrend is that tale. Yet, it feels as if we walk on eggshells. Global economic growth is synchronized all right.. in a state of severe slowdown. Various obstacles are in the way, such as Brexit, a potential U.S. government shutdown, the trade war with China, and the one after that with the EU that really has not even begun just yet.

All of this has certainly put the whammy on earnings growth moving forward. Obviously tax comparisons to the year prior are the number-one reason for the reduction in earnings growth as the quarter currently being reported is the last to benefit from the drastic cut in corporate effective tax rates. Next quarter, the growth, or lack thereof, will be a more honest comparison. That honest comparison will have to deal with a level of dollar strength that was thought to have started to dissipate at this point. The thought originally was that foreign central banks would be either in a state, or closing in on a state, of considerably tighter monetary policy by now.

Here we stand, however, as the only shirt in the hamper that might get away with a shot of Fabreze. In theory, this should play well, or at least better, for domestic earnings over international earnings. Should rates remain suppressed this plays better for small-caps than anyone anticipated just a few months ago. In other words, I am exposing myself to growth to a degree, but my cash levels remain above my norm for a 14th consecutive month, as does my position in gold.

Good morning! I'm Stephen Guilfoyle, and I'll be pinch-hitting for my old buddy Doug Kass the rest of the day.

Equity markets seem to be warming to the possibility that with so much going on in terms of potential disaster in the way of pending deadlines (federal budget, China, Brexit) that it can't all end badly, can it? Kind of brings us back to Doug's opening piece on the passing of time, doesn't it? Happy birthday, Doctor! I may not be smart enough to create the way you can, but thank goodness I am smart enough to understand you most of the time, and that'll do.

As someone who writes often, and always has, I had to laugh (and I did) when Douglas mentioned how his first missive of the day has worked its way into the wee hours of the night, and that he feels that he now works harder than ever. I try to explain this to my wife. I tell her how easy it used to be to simply be the smartest guy in the room. Now, everybody is smart. There was a time when I would have a crowd around me as headline-level economic data was released, simply because I was the one who had a clue what consensus might be. We are talking about multiple decades here. I'll also never forget being stopped by a full-bird colonel at Camp Lejeune back in the day, because the colonel had never seen a corporal with a copy of The Wall Street Journal under his arm before and wanted to make sure I wasn't hiding anything.

The macro calendar is light, but will heat up big-time later this week, as we'll see numbers for inflation, retail sales and industrial production. Earnings season is winding down, but we'll hear from the shale crowd, the Canadian cannabis crowd, and a couple of tech heavyweights, among them Nvidia (NVDA) and Cisco (CSCO) .

So, I want you to take a couple of minutes. Drop and give me 50 -- 75 if you want to impress me. Eat something, and pack your gear. Road march this morning, Full battle rattle.

"Stayed in bed all mornin' just to pass the time

There's somethin' wrong here, there can be no denyin'

One of us is changin', or maybe we've just stopped tryin'"

--Carole King, It's Too Late

Time passes so slowly if you are unware of it and so quickly if you are aware of it.

Something odd happens when we grow older. As the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too soon needed ten, then thirty, then a full minute -- like shadows lengthening at dusk.

As I pass a big milestone and celebrate my birthday today, I recognize, more and more the passage of time.

I see it all around me as contemporaries slow down and even succumb.

Yet, as it relates to my Diary on Real Money Pro, oddly, I find myself working harder than I did two decades, 10 years, a year ago and a month ago.

In the late 1990s, I used to start writing my column at about 8 a.m. ET. In the 2000s my day began at around 7 a.m. After The Great Recession of 2008-09, my opening missive assignment was produced by 630 a.m. Fast forward to 2019, and our editors receive my first utterings often by 5 a.m.

It's as if I am running so fast that I don't want to be caught.

In terms of quality, I like to think my output has improved over time. Every morning -- and without fail -- ideas, observations and, yes, lyrics swirl in my head as I begin to prepare writing my opening missive.

In terms of markets, the most amazing thing to me is that the investment mosaic is ever more complicated -- providing a flow of ample and fertile material for analysis and interpretation.

Markets are more interconnected and dynamic than at any time in history. As I see it, investment time is a sort of river of passing events (earnings reports, business developments, management changes, etc.) -- and strong is its current. No sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this, too, will be swept away.

"How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?"

--Dr. Seuss

Sorry Carole King... It's not too late for Dougie!


Last Sunday, at my political forum at my golf club. From left to right: Senator George LeMieux, Florida 2009-2011; me; Dave Aronberg, Florida state attorney; Ken Langone, co-founder of Home Depot (HD) ; and Jeff Greene, 2018 candidate for governor of Florida.