Holy smokes!

I was in the Reno, Nevada Best Buy (BBY) the day before Black Friday and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Stacked to the ceiling were piles of 65 inch 4k ultra smart LED HDTV’s priced at only $799.99. That is $300 off the regular price. I paid $4,000 for one of these four years ago. That’s deflation, man!

Every square inch of the special retail outlet was similarly packed with mountains of inventory, and they expected to sell ALL OF IT!

I was speaking to a sales clerk when a big bruiser of a man, at least three hundred pounds and all muscle, asked when the doors would open. 12:01 AM was the answer. I think I’ll pass on that one and visit the website instead where the prices are the same, but the risk of getting trampled to death by an NFL reject is nil.

I was not the only one to reach that risk-averse conclusion. Friday, November 24, was a seminal day in the history of retail, if not all of western civilization. It was the first time that Black Friday online sales exceeded brick and mortar sales.

The Great Online Migration has begun.

So is this also the start of the Singularity, where man and machine become one? I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen for another 20 years? I’ll have to ask my friend Ray Kurzweil.

A record of another sort was broken when the personal wealth of Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos exceeded $100 billion. That is thanks to the meteoric rise of Amazon shares in the past month, up 22%. Which makes you wonder what’s in the water in Seattle, Washington. The previous holder of the “Richest Man in the World” title is Bill Gates, who only lives a few miles away from Jeff.

As for Best Buy, the share price was blind to the stampede of frenzied buyers in its stores, stuck in the same narrow range that has held it hostage for the past six months.

The stench of retail is a foul one, at least for equity investors.

It all provided a refreshing break from our new daily torture known as tax reform. My bet is that congressmen are getting an earful visiting constituents at home this week.

It is in effect an untradable backdrop, as no one truly knows what is going to happen. Or to quote Bush appointee Donald Rumsfeld, “it is unknowable.”

It certainly doesn’t give you much to hang your hat on as a trader.

The week was mercifully shortened to four days, as everyone’s focus was clearly on the holiday and Black Friday.

The 25-basis point rate hike on December 13 moved forward another week.

Congress will hold hearings this week with Jerome Powell where we may gain the first insight on the cut of the jib of the new Fed Governor. Dove, or hawk? It makes a big difference to shareholders.

The financial media are now daily churning out statistics on how expensive stocks are.

The S&P 500 is now selling at 9.2 times book value, companies to 6.3 times the 2008 peak, and 8.7 times the 1999 bubble top. Stocks responded by rising to new all-time highs….again.

Remember, the more you drink, the worse the hangover that follows. Are we setting up for one of those now? January maybe?

The only recent flutter was a down -2.3% in the Chinese stock market on Friday. We’ll know in days if this is the start of something bigger.

As for my Trade Alert performance, it has been a real battle to add incremental performance. Meteoric spikes have turned into one yard and a cloud of dust.

We are challenged by an atrocious risk/reward ratio which strongly augurs against opening new positions in any asset class.

The acceleration of the tax bill triggered a rip-your-face-off rally in the Russell 2000 (IWM), which I was short.

A settling of the political situation in Germany then robbed me of my profits in my short Euro position (FXE).

Still, we are making money in our gold (GLD) long, and prospects are good in January again.

On Monday, November 27, at 10:00 AM the October New Home Sales are published, a forward-looking basket of ten monthly data points.

On Tuesday, November 28 at 9:00 AM EST we get a new S&P Corelogic Case Shiller National Home Prices Index for September. Since the data predates the Republican plan to deny mortgage interest and real estate tax deductions, the data should remain hot.

On Wednesday, November 29 at 8:30 AM we get a new update for Q3 GDP. The last report came in at a relatively hot 3.0% annual rate.

The weekly EIA Petroleum Status Report is out at 10:30 AM.

Thursday, November 30 at 8:30 EST we get another Weekly Jobless Claims. Last week came in at a near four decade low.

On Friday, December 1 at 9:45 AM, the PMI Manufacturing Index is out,  a survey of future month to month expectations.

We then receive the Baker-Hughes Rig Count at 1:00 PM EST, which lately has started to turn up again.

As for me, I will be driving home from Lake Tahoe  with a gigantic ten foot tall Christmas tree tied to my roof.

Holiday hell has begun!