So yesterday was Super Tuesday where a heck of a ton of states voted in their primaries. From what I gather, Super Tuesday normally clears up front runner status for both parties. Just like the markets, Super Tuesday really didn’t answer much in terms of the Democratic race with Clinton taking a small delegate lead over Obama. Republicans were a bit clearer with McCain taking a sizable lead over the other two candidates (three if you count Paul). Seems like the country as a whole has no clue who they really want as president yet. So now we have a frustrated voter block and a frustrated market with no clear direction in sight!
After the ISM numbers were released early yesterday, the markets never recovered, losing 370 points in a broad bloodbath. After the bell, Disney (DIS) reported outstanding numbers. I think that may be part of the reason we’re seeing a moderate bounce in the futures this morning, up about 40 points as of 08:00. I wouldn’t be surprised if inter-meeting Fed rate cuts are floating around as well. It takes time to get out of the mess we’re in folks. No amount of rate cutting is going to speed up time. It’s only going to make things worse with inflation. Think $5 for a gallon of milk is quite high? Wait until it starts inching closer to $6. I think we can easily see a gallon of milk close to $6.50 by the end of the year if it hasn’t gotten that high in some places.
Good luck today. I’ll be in and out working on 1,440 Excel tables for my research dissertation so forgive me if I’m a bit distracted today… sigh…