Today's Post - https://bahnsen.co/3S0qSBs

Markets today moved higher as bond yields came lower. One can argue that bond yields are dropping in response to comments from Fed governors yesterday (see below) but the more prominent factor is likely a slight flight-to-risk out of the war situation in Gaza. What it has done, though, is exacerbate the stock-bond correlation whereby they were both dropping in September and now are both rallying.

Earnings season launched with Pepsi announcing their results before the market opened. Markets liked it.

President Biden joined with European leaders in a joint statement taking an unambiguous stance against Hamas and for Israel. He gave a speech this afternoon that conceded there are American fatalities and hostages. Congress and even the White House are not really the challenge here – a rare thing to be able to say in this day and age. The challenge for the President will be, to borrow from my favorite political commentator, Mark Halperin, “the squad, and then Harvard students.” But there also will be a real challenge for the administration to maintain their posture with Iran (it will likely be impossible), and what can be done about American hostages taken by Hamas is not going to be easy either. Add to that the complexity of getting aid for Ukraine and Israel in the next 2-3 weeks, and this is going to be a challenging time at the White House.

The death toll appears to be over 1,500 now. The reports all seem to indicate that one of the reasons Israeli intelligence picked up nothing on what Hamas was doing was that there was simply no electronic communication about it at all – none.

The Republican mess over the next Speaker of the House is as blurry, evenly divided, and unclear as it was a week ago.

Links mentioned in this episode: