I Vote We Get on With Our Lives, Nvidia News, Boeing Breakthrough
Let's look at the market, including a chart of the S&P, as well as the pitfalls of early voting, and my bonus trivia question.
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Happy election day Tuesday. ... One congressperson's campaign texted me so often this electoral season that I will be glad to see this day pass. Forget the TV ads and the snail mail. The texts have been insane. I reported the texts as junk to no avail. The shame of it is that I had already voted for that candidate -- a pitfall of early voting. Had I waited until Election Day to vote, I certainly would not have voted for that person.
So, as it is every four years ... we elect an executive to lead as head of state and Commander in Chief. That makes the stakes higher. That runs the emotions hot. People get stupid. The nation suffers for it. You know, I am so old, I remember national elections, pre-internet. Younger readers might be surprised to know that there was a time that lefties and righties didn't hate each other for their political leanings. If they were friends, they just talked about baseball instead of politics. Good times.
Trivia Question: One U.S. president has also served as Commander in Chief twice while not holding the office of president. Easy question for the history buffs. Who is he, and when?
Monday Markets
Trading volumes were down a bit on a day-over-day basis, as traders and investors showed caution ahead of the national election. Most of our major and mid-major equity indexes closed lower for the session as Treasury debt securities rallied. The U.S. Ten Year Note went out on Monday afternoon, yielding 4.29%, down 9 basis points, while the U.S. Ten Year Note paid 4.17% (-4 bps) by day's end. Neither one is too far from those levels as the zero-dark hours roll by on Tuesday morning.
For the regular trading session, the S&P 500 gave up 0.28%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.33%. Only the smaller-cap indexes closed out the day in the green. The S&P SmallCap 600, Russell 2000, and S&P MidCap 400 closed up 0.48%, 0.4% and 0.29% respectively.
Just four of the 11 S&P sector SPDR exchange-traded funds closed out Monday in the green, led by Energy XLE and the Real Estate Investment Trusts XLRE as those two were up 1.75% and 1.12% in that order, The Utilities XLU were the only fund among the 11 to surrender more than a full percentage point for the day.
As for breadth, despite the red on the screen at the index level, winners beat losers at the NSE by a rough 3 to 2 margin and by just a smidgen at the Nasdaq. Advancing volume took a majority share of composite trade for names listed at both exchanges as well (53.8% at the NYSE, and 55.5% for the Nasdaq). The only things missing were aggregate trading volume, which was down for listings at both exchanges and green daily candles for the large cap indices.
Still Testing the S&P
Readers will see that the S&P 500, coming out of that rising wedge pattern that we made so much about, while not failing at the 50-day simple moving average, looks like it's not exactly done testing that thin blue line.
Readers will see too, that despite a neutral reading for Relative Strength and equity index futures that seem to want to rise as the wee hours pass this morning, that the daily Moving Average Convergence Divergence still looks like the villain from a cheap 1970s slasher movie.
Time to Save Boeing From Crashing
It finally happened. Boeing's BA machinists have voted to accept the company's latest offer that did not bring back the traditional pension, ending a roughly eight-week strike. Workers will get a 38% raise over four years and increased retirement contributions. Estimates are that this strike cost Boeing, employees, suppliers and shareholders something like $10 billion.
Can Boeing now regain its stature as an iconic American industrial operation? Only time will tell, the company has been an embarrassment of inefficient and ineffective leadership for quite some time. Then again, CEO Kelly Ortberg only took on that role in August, so we really have to give him a chance to show his stuff. To his credit, he did not grow up professionally at Boeing. He's really a Rockwell Collins man, which means he became a United Technologies man and a Raytheon Man before finally becoming an RTX RTX man without ever changing employers.
Soviet What?
Bloomberg News reported on Monday afternoon that European and U.S. intelligence officials believe that Soviet, I mean that Russia, is behind a plan that would target air cargo shipments to North America with incendiary devices.
Apparently, Poland's National Prosecutor's Office made a statement that the agency is investigating the possible involvement of a foreign intelligence service in sabotage activities against Poland, the rest of the E.U. and the U.K. The Wall Street Journal had reported on Monday that Moscow might be targeting the U.S. with such an operation.
According to the Bloomberg article, the U.S. had already warned allies that Russia would be targeting cargo shipping companies in an effort to disrupt resupply missions to Ukrainian forces.
Nvidia News
Nvidia NVDA is said to be rerouting orders previously placed with Super Micro Computer SMCI to other suppliers. This move comes in the wake of SMCI's continued challenges in reporting their financial condition. Super Micro Computer is facing a Nov. 20 deadline to submit its financial documents or face potentially being delisted by Nasdaq. How embarrassing for not just an S&P 500 company, but for S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC for selecting this firm for inclusion in its most prestigious index, the S&P 500.
Mighty, Mighty Palantir
On Monday night, longtime Sarge fave and former "Stocks Under $10" portfolio core holding Palantir Technologies reported third quarter financial results.
What happened?
A nice bat at the top line, a beat at the bottom line and increased guidance for both the current quarter and full year. The stock is up more than 13% overnight, trading with a $46 handle.
I'll be back in a couple of hours with more detailed coverage. Rock 'n' roll.
Trivia Answer
In addition to serving as Commander in Chief of U.S. forces as President of the United States from April 1789 until March 1797, General George Washington served as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army from June 1775 through the end of the American Revolution in 1783. There was no executive branch at the time. John Hancock and others served as president of the First and Second Continental Congress, though that job was more akin to being Speaker of the House than it was to being head of state.
Washington was also commissioned as Commander in Chief in 1798 by then President John Adams during the Quasi-War with France, into 1799. Adams felt that if a hot war came to pass that he was far less qualified to run the Army than was the former president. This is the only time in history that a US president willingly conceded that authority to someone perceived to have greater expertise in military affairs. Washington was feeling old and as you probably know, died in late 1799. While he was technically "Commander in Chief" at that time, he relied heavily on Major General Alexander Hamilton who was also pressed into service at that time for that crisis.
If You Haven't Already...
Get out and vote. That is all.
Economics (All Times Eastern)
08:30 - Balance of Trade (Sep): Last $-70.4B.
08:55 - Redbook (Weekly): Last 5.6% y/y.
09:45 - S&P Global Services PMI (Oct-F): Flashed 55.3.
10:00 - ISM Non-Manufacturing Index (Dec): Expecting 53.3, Last 54.9.
1:00 p.m. - Ten Year Note Auction: $42B.
4:30 - API Oil Inventories (Weekly): Last -573K.
The Fed (All Times Eastern)
Fed Blackout Period.
Today's Earnings Highlights (Consensus EPS Expectations)
Before the Open: DD (1.03), YUM (1.44)
After the Close: IFF (1.08), SMCI (0.73)
At the time of publication, Guilfoyle was long XLU, RTX, NVDA, PLTR.
