"Nothing really matters."
That's the tag line from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, which is this weekend's hit movie, about a band with an outspoken gay lead singer who was a teenage Indian refugee who was granted the political aslylum that Trump would deny to others. To this day, a guy who died of Aids has Conservative Republicans stomping their feet and clapping their hands at sporting events around the nation singing "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions" to this day. Life is strange…
Nothing matters today as the election looms large tomorrow and nothing matters tomorrow as we have a Fed Rate Decision on Tuesday so today is completely pointless so let's just see what's been going on recently that might matter:
We have the Iran Sactions kicking in but there are so many exemptions to it that it's pretty toothless at this point. Nothetheless, it's certainly pissing Iran off and now Trump's pal Kim Jung Un is also pissed off because the US has not honored their pledge to reduce sanctions on North Korea – who did scale back their nuclearl program ages ago – so why should Iran believe a word Trump says? US Foreign Policy plans should go further than "kick over hornet's nests."
Will US voters repudiate Trump's policies tomorrow or embrace them? Sadly, just a day before the election – we still don't know. Aside from the election, there are many market-moving ballot initiatives around the country. For example, Colorado voters will decide on increasing the buffer zones around oil and gas development and could eliminate new drilling in more than half the state. Energy producers have put about $40 million into defeating the initiative – more than is spent in many Congressional races.
Electric companies in Arizona and Nevada face potential new requirements to produce more energy from renewable resources such as wind and sola and a separate measure in Nevada will ask voters to approve opening a competitive retail energy market. In Montana, a ballot measure would require state authorities to deny a permit for any new hardrock mines that would create “perpetual pollution,” while a Washington state initiative to impose the nation’s first fee on carbon dioxide has drawn high-profile support, including from the rock band Pearl Jam and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates.
Four states will decide on legalizing various uses of cannabis. Michigan and North Dakota voters face a ballot measure on recreational use, while Missouri and Utah voters will weigh legalizing medical marijuana. We are already long on the Cannabis ETF (MJ) and it's already very profitable in our Money Talk Portfolio – a position we finished adding to on Oct 29th (from a trade idea we announced live on TV on the 24th), when the ETF was crashing:
| Long Call | 2021 15-JAN 25.00 CALL [MJ @ $32.30 $0.00] | 20 | 10/29/2018 | (802) | $19,000 | $9.50 | $2.30 | $9.50 | $11.80 | $1.38 | $4,600 | 24.2% | $23,600 | ||
| Short Call | 2021 15-JAN 45.00 CALL [MJ @ $32.30 $0.00] | -20 | 10/29/2018 | (802) | $-10,000 | $5.00 | $-1.08 | $3.93 | $0.51 | $2,150 | 21.5% | $-7,850 | |||
| Short Put | 2021 15-JAN 30.00 PUT [MJ @ $32.30 $0.00] | -10 | 10/29/2018 | (802) | $-7,750 | $7.75 | $-0.75 | $7.00 | $-0.30 | $750 | 9.7% | $-7,000 |
That's our 2019 Trade of the Year, in fact. We're still pretty low in the channel and there's still 35 more states that can legalize pot down the road, not to mention 199 countries so I think this ETF is a great long-term bet and without the danger of any single bankruptcy dragging your investment down. Even with our gains, it's still a $30,000 potential play that we paid net $1,250 for and, currently, it's at net $8,750 so up 700% in two weeks for our Members but, even if you did "save" $3 a day by not subscribing to our Daily PSW Report, you can still make another $21,250 (242%) from here!
This is how we use Fundamental News Events to make money trading stocks. It's also a good example of how stocks and ETFs are taken down by "THEM" ahead of those events so "THEY" (they know who "THEY" are) can chase all the retail suckers out of positions and pick up obvious positions dirt cheap. Gasoline (/RB) and Oil (/CL) were examples of that last week and we flipped bullish on both ahead of the Iran Sanctions and, even this morning, Oil is still $63 and Gasoline is still $1.70 – both good lines to play long.
While the scope of the sactions is disappointing for the bulls, ANY disruption in the energy markets destabilizes all sorts of things around the World and instability tends to drive up prices so up is simply more likely than down at this point and also we have the looming Thanksgiving Holiday in the US – the last big travel holiday of the year that's usually a booster for gasoline consumption.
There's not a lot of data this week but there are a lot of note auctions – so we'll see what prices those get over the next few days. The Fed Meeting starts Wednesday but the rate announcement won't be until Thursday so a lot of earnings and rumor-driven action until then.
On Friday, we have Fed speeches from Williams, Harket and Quarles pre-market – that usually happens when they think they might need to save the market from a bad week.
Just saying…
