It’s A FOMC Day Today!

November 1, 2017    

* Another nothing day in the currencies… UGH

* U.S. Consumer Confidence Soars higher!

* A Like it never happened day for the FOMC…  

 

Good day…  And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! And Welcome to November…  How was your Halloween?  Mine was good, as a few neighbor friends sat around a fire that I built in the driveway, and gave out candy to the Trick-R-Treaters…  It was cold out, but not around that fire pit! Then we folded everything up, and went inside, and I watched the last few innings of the World Series Game 6, thinking that the Astros would build a come back rally like they had in previous games, but that was not to be last night and so we’ll see a Game 7 tonight! Game 7’s are very special… Who will blink?  One of my best memories is Game 7 of the 2011 World Series, when I was at the ballpark with my sons, Andrew, Alex and Jerry to watch our beloved Cardinals win the Series.  Supertramp  greets me this morning with their song: From Now On…    

Oh, and I stayed up way too late watching the baseball game last night, which means this morning I almost didn’t answer the bell! But like I’ve told you before, whenever I’m laying there thinking that discretion would be the better part of valor, and go back to sleep, I think about my dad…  Who had all kinds of ailments through the years, but got up and went to work driving a truck, every day! And so… here I am! Aren’t you glad? HA! All my clothes last night smelled of wood smoke, they went straight to the washing machine room!  

Well, I’ve beaten around the bush enough today…  It was another “nothing day” for the currencies yesterday, and through the overnight sessions. Gold lost $5.60 but is up $9.30 in the early morning trading today… But this non-movement in the currencies is beginning to give me a rash! I mean this is like its the Dog Days of Summer, and we’re way past that!  The Dollar Index moved 1 tick in the past 24 hours, as yesterday morning it was 94.63, and today it is 94.64…

The best performer overnight is the New Zealand dollar/ kiwi, which has really spent an inordinate amount of time in the woodshed, folks… but it escaped last night, and found its way back to the 69-cent figure… That’s about a 1/2-cent move for kiwi, and that’s a good thing.. I think, and I believe I said this last week here, that kiwi has been oversold, and a reversal of that overselling should be on the way…   So, there you go! Now, if kiwi can just keep the pedal to the metal here…   

The U.K. pound sterling is also stronger this morning and is up one full cent to trade in the 1.33 handle. Over and over again, pound traders continue to believe that Bank of England (BOE) Gov. Mark Carney is going to hike rates here… The economic data in the U.K. is a mixed bag-o-nuts and then the U.K. has the BREXIT negotiations hanging over it like the Sword of Damocles…  I would use these “run ups” in sterling as an opportunity… wink, wink…    

The price of Oil moved higher again in the past 24 hours, and now trades with a $55 handle… But the Petrol Currencies are not getting any traction from this move in Black Gold, Texas Tea… 

Here in the U.S. it’s an FOMC Day today…  And this meeting by the Fed will be lile ServPro  “like nothing happened!”  The fed will meet, they’ll leave rates unchanged, and make that announcement, and that’s it. No press conference with Janet Yellen, no statement at this time…  The minutes of the meeting will print in a few weeks, but until then we’ll have to think that Fed is still trying to come to grips with a rate hike in December… 

Of course I’ve said over and over again since April that there will be no rate hike in December… And maybe the FOMC meeting minutes will give us a clue when they print in a few weeks… By then, we’ll be stuffing ourselves with great Thanksgiving fare!  The weeks all begin to meld together from here on out folks… Thanksgiving will be here before we know it, and then it’s into December and Christmas!  

I talk about this  because I’m looking at the Tax Reform Bill which has still not made itself public… and when it does, there will be little time before the Thanksgiving Break to get it done, and then, well, like I said above, it’ll be Christmas!  And this Tax Reform Bill is what has the dollar so perky these days… As the Bill is supposed to remake the American economy…  and no one knows when it will be presented to the American public… Hmmm…    

I hear that part of the TBR (tax reform bill) is a provision to reduce the amount of money investors can deposit to the 401K’s on an annual basis…  I have loved the idea of the 401K through the years, but now that I’m sort-of retired I don’t contribute to my 401K any longer, so I won’t be affected…  But my kids will be! But my two older kids are teachers, so they have their own retirement plans, and Alex still has 2 1/2 years to go through college… 

But I see this as a real dud for other people…  No, not a real dud, a real bummer, as they used to say back in the 70’s…    

Boy the U.S. Data Cupboard yesterday, Consumer Confidence saw a moon shot higher moving to 125 from 119…  Again, they don’t call me for my opinion, so I just move along here for these are not the droids we’re looking for!   And today’s Data Cupboard is all about the FOMC meeting this afternoon…   

As I said above Gold lost $5.60 yesterday to close at $1,270.40, but is up $9.50 this morning, so this morning its trading at $1,279.90…  Yesterday, I told you about the story going around about the Canadian Royal Mint stamped wafer turning out to be fake…  Well, the Canadian Royal Mint issued a statement yesterday that claimed the wafer not to be one of theirs…  So, if that’s the true, then someone out there has a Mint stamp and using it for no good…   I’m thinking of Dudley Do-Right, and Snidely Whiplash, right now…  

To recap…  It has been a nothing day for the currencies in the past 24 hours, kiwi was the best performer and it only gained 1/2-cent! The Dollar Index moved one tick from 94.63 yesterday to 94.64 today…  Gold though sold off by $5 and change, and is up $9 and change this morning… The price of Oil is now trading with a $55 handle… But that hasn’t helped the Petrol Currencies…  And the Fed’s FOMC meets today, to announce that they are keeping rates unchanged…    

For What It’s Worth….  The FWIW article came courtesy of dear reader Bob, who seems to know exactly what i’m looking for in these articles! this is about small community banks getting swallowed up by the Big Banks and it can be found here: https://www.globalresearch.ca/selling-out-to-americas-megabanks-regulation-is-killing-community-banks-public-banks-can-revive-them/5615902    

Or, here’s your snippet: “At his confirmation hearing in January 2017, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said, “regulation is killing community banks. If the process is not reversed, he warned, we could “end up in a world where we have four big banks in this country.” That would be bad for both jobs and the economy.” He goes on to say… 

“I think that we all appreciate the engine of growth is with small and medium-sized businesses,” said Mnuchin. “We’re losing the ability for small and medium-sized banks to make good loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the community, where they understand those credit risks better than anybody else.”

The number of US banks with assets under $100 million dropped from 13,000 in 1995 to under 1,900 in 2014. The regulatory burden imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act exacerbated this trend, with community banks losing market share at double the rate during the four years after 2010 as in the four years before. But the number had already dropped to only 2,625 in 2010.  What happened between 1995 and 2010?”   

Chuck again… Yes, the times they are a changing… eh? This is a good article just to give you a heads up of what to expect coming down the line with banking…    

Currencies today  11/1/2017… American Style: A$ .7682, kiwi .6913, C$ .7767, euro 1.1638, sterling 1.3303, Swiss $1.003, …  European Style:    rand 14.1235, krone 8/1326, SEK 8.3806, forint 267.55, zloty 3.6388,  koruna 21.9620, RUB 58.18, yen 114, sing 1.3602, HKD 7.8019, INR 64.62, China 6.6327, peso 19.14, BRL 3.2799, Dollar Index 94.64, Oil $55.04, 10yr 2.39%, Silver $16.98, Platinum $928.41, Palladium $994.10, and Gold… $1,279.90  

That’s it for today… I heard some good jokes last night… And was amazed at a kids magic tricks with cards… So… why don’t you grab a ghost from behind…   Give up?  Because you get a handful of sheet!  Again, I had you going there didn’t I?  So it’s November, my most hated month, and to attempt to make it go fast, I’m heading to S. Florida for 12 days this Friday after my infusion on Thursday.  No Worries, I’ll be writing from there… But no Pfennig on Friday, right? Correctomundo! I’ve got a real oldie spooling up for the last song this morning… Barbara Lewis takes us to the finish line today with her song: Hello Stranger…  Don’t know Barbara Lewis? She was huge in the 60’s… You should check her out on YouTube…  And with that… I had better send you on your way to having a Wonderful Wednesday…  Be Good To Yourself!