78F and 97%RH. It rained on me in various parts of town all afternoon yesterday. It was like a black cloud followed me around and wanted my auction items to be wet. My wife said she wasn’t aware of any rain. Must have been little cells and I just happened to drive through a bunch of them. Stuff in the back of the truck didn’t get too wet, as long as you keep moving the airflow keeps most of it out of the bed.
Couple of interesting things in this story — https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-16/ex-fox-friends-co-host-flees-us-amid-ponzi-scheme-allegations
First, note that a guy who hosts on Fox is married to a woman who is a former news anchor with MSNBC. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. Then look at what the arrangement in question tried to do- profit by flipping and renting houses. Then the last line of the article – “As to why Clayton, Natali, and Whalen thought they could become stupid rich in flipping homes and renting them out for investors during a hiking cycle by the Federal Reserve and the eventual turning point in the economy that started in the summer of 2018 — is beyond us. All schemes tend to come undone at the end part of a business cycle. ” –Umm, they thought they could shear a few sheep before the bubble popped, or they thought they were too smart to get caught short when the bubble popped, or they didn’t believe it was a bubble. Bubbles always pop. I love how the author just casually mentions the end though, like everyone knows that’s what happened. Easy enough in hind sight.
And then there is this– https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-16/despite-best-first-half-decade-hedge-funds-fees-continue-fall-0 Hedge funds are supposed to be the smartest guys, Wall Street players. If you were a conspiracy theorist, it might look suspicious that the market is so high, yet all the smart guys are doing so poorly…
“Years of underperforming the market as a result of the Fed’s rigged stock environment where fundamentals no longer matter has led many investors to seek out less expensive alternatives, especially since central banks no longer allow even a modest drop in the market. But hedge funds reported their best first half in a decade this year as managers capitalized on the surge in stocks after their plunge late last year.
Even still, the 5.7% gain across the hedge fund industry paled in comparison to the S&P 500, which returned almost 19% over the same course of time. This came after hedge funds delivered their worst performance since 2011 last year.“
And another big fund is calling it quits — https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-17/woodfords-once-iconic-fund-begins-forced-liquidations-vows-no-big-discounts
“Woodford has left thousands of investors without access to their savings after suspending its flagship $4.63 billion equity income fund about a month and a half ago after overwhelming redemption requests.”
— I wonder why those ‘sophisticated investors’ want their money back? They need it to cover something else? They need it for current expenses? They’ve lost faith in the fund?
I’m convinced more than ever that it’s a casino. Rule number one is “if you look around and can’t see the patsy, the patsy is YOU.” If you stayed in, take your gains and get out for a while. If you ‘let it ride’ you are going to leave the table busted.*
In politics, maybe now some chickens will come home to roost–
“Is Somalian-born far-left ‘squad’ member Ilhan Omar ‘married to her brother’? Trump makes extraordinary suggestion about one of his Democrat tormentors
President Donald Trump suggested Rep. Ilhan Omar was ‘married to her brother’
Reignited an explosive rumor that first emerged during Omar’s 2016 campaign
He made the outlandish claim to the press before heading to a rally in NC
Omar has failed to fully disprove the claims of bigamy and fraternal marriage
She has called the rumors ‘baseless, absurd’ and amounting to Islamophobia”
She got an “islamic divorce”. Alt-media has followed this story since it began. MSM is late to the party.
And that should be enough to kick off some discussion….
nick
*(nothing I write should EVER be considered investment advice, and is for entertainment purposes only, past performance is no guarantee of future performance (and that goes for past bad advice too-even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut.) )