Tag: news

Submitted by Peter Garnry, Head of Equity Strategy, Saxo Bank

Summary: Yield-curve control has mixed results when it comes to equities. Japan’s YCC policy since September 2016 has not been a success judging from real GDP growth and for Japanese equities which have underperformed global equities. The period 1942-1951 when the Fed had a YCC policy in place suggests a more positive picture for equities against inflation hinting that YCC can work as a crisis tool. However, the key risk related to YCC is inflation risk as our study of inflation and equity returns suggest inflation growth of 4% or higher leads to bad real rate returns for equities.

History tends to repeats itself and the FOMC Minutes have indicated that the Fed is considering yield-curve control which was last used in the 1940s. In the case the Fed hints of yield-curve control (YCC) going the same way as the Bank of Japan (BOJ) introducing YCC in September 2016 and recently Reserve Bank of Australia in March 2020 what would likely be the effect on equities.

In the recent case of BOJ the evidence suggest as a mild positive effect on Japanese equities in local currency relative to global equities. Japanese equities outperform global equities in local currency by 12% from September 2016 to November 2017. Since then Japanese equities have underperformed by 18% and Japan’s real GDP growth is slightly lower after YCC was introduced compared to the four years leading up to its introduction. One potential reason for YCC’s lackluster performance in Japan could be related to fiscal tightening in the years after 2016 relative to the period before YCC reducing public impulse into the economy.

The evidence from the US experiment with YCC in the period 1942-1951 seems much better. US equities deliver a 5.6% annualized real rate return with the years 1946-1949 of high post-war inflation being negative for equities. The period suggests that equities can thrive in a high inflationary and high debt period under YCC but investors should keep in mind that this period only represents one independent sample and that economy has changed much since the 1940s. The reaction in Japanese equities in the year following Japan’s introduction of YCC suggest that we got see a boost to US sentiment on equities from the introduction of YCC in the US.

Which sectors will benefit from YCC?

The cap on long-term interest rates will also cap banks’ profitability through an upper bound on net interest margin. However, to the extend that YCC creates growth this will grow loan books and thus market values of banks. Our view is that financials should be avoided in this environment but that growth companies with a large part of their value coming from the future should be overweight as YCC creates a low discount factor for future cash flows. Highly leveraged companies and capital intensive industries such as auto, airliners, steel, real estate, shipping, construction etc. should also outperform in this environment as YCC will set financing rates artificially low.

Inflation is the danger for equities

YCC combined with aggressive US government deficits could suddenly create inflation which history suggests has a tendency to be a wild beast when it escapes its normal ring-fencing. Higher inflationary pressures will not immediately become negative for equities as our analysis from May 2019 of equities and inflation over 105 years suggest. A mild positive inflation shock has historically been associated with positive real returns in equities. It’s actually a large deflationary shock that has been associated with negative real returns. Equities have historically delivered negative real return when inflation has sustained its growth rate above 4%. This is the real danger for equities.

How likely is it that the Fed will introduce YCC? The Fed introduced YCC in March 1942 to stabilize the bond market amid rising inflation expectations due to enormous US war deficits. This time around deflationary forces seem to be more dominant than inflationary forces due to the demand destruction from COVID-19 lockdowns around the world. Fixing the long-term yields will mostly lead to lower monthly purchases of bonds and thus lower growth of the Fed’s balance sheet while sending a signal to the Treasury to stimulate the economy through government deficits without worrying about stability in the bond market. YCC will most likely come and already this year as it’s naturally crisis tool but also an important tool to create inflation and thus dig the world out of its debt mountain. But whether it will be announced tomorrow at the FOMC meeting is more uncertain. Given the current market pricing it’s most likely that the Fed will keep this tool in the box and utilize it if the market destabilizes over the coming months.

The history of US yield-curve control

During World War II concerns over US budget deficits and inflation put upward pressure on long-term interest rates. In an attempt to stabilize the bond market the Fed capped long-term yields at 2.5% and Treasury bills at 0.375%. This operation effectively helped the US government monetize its war efforts. There are two ways to do this. Either the central bank simply buys a pre-determined amount of bonds every months (quantitative easing or QE) or it can introduce YCC which set a yield target which effectively means unlimited purchases of bonds. The findings from BOJ’s operation since September 2016 is that the quarterly bond purchases actually fell after YCC was introduced compared to the QE period from 2013-2016.

US inflation was in 1947 so high that the Fed had to raise the short-term interest rates to dampen inflation pressures but chose to keep the long-term yield cap. However, in 1951 the Fed had to abandon this target as well also called the Fed-Treasiry “Accord” ending the crisis policy during the war and post-war years. Nominal growth was significantly above the long-term interest rates and thus created a tailwind for reducing US public debt to GDP. In 1953 the Fed adopted its price stability policy combined with controlling the short-term interest rates through its bills only policy. In the years that followed public debt to GDP declined and bottomed out during the 1970s.

They say that if you repeat the same lie enough times, you start to believe it. And so it is with progressive Democrats and their refusal to acknowledge the true depth of the violence unleashed during the protests. Chicago experienced one of its deadliest weekends of violence in recent memory, but you would never guess by reading the coverage by the New York Times and Washington Post.

A particularly disturbing example of this phenomenon has just emerged out of Chicago, where a recording from a meeting between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the City Council, where one of the mayor’s chief critics, Raymond Lopez, a fellow gay Democrat who was the first openly gay Mexican-American elected to public office in Illinois, accused her of not doing enough to quell the violence.

In the recording, which is included below, Lightfoot can be heard telling Lopez that she believed his eyewitness reports about “gangbangers with AK47s waiting to settle some scores” were “100% full of shit”.

Leaked audio of Alderman and mayor exchange in Chicago…good luck to my friends in Chicago

pic.twitter.com/olktDo8kFB

— Ed ☯️ (@DowdEdward) June 9, 2020

“Well f**k you then,” Lopez spat back as the two launched into a rancorous back and forth.

See the full transcript of the leaked audio clip below, courtesy of the CBS affiliate in Chicago:

“When downtown is in lockdown, our neighborhoods are next, and our failure to fully get ready for what’s going on in the neighborhoods, we’re seeing this destruction, and we’re thinking that it’s going to somehow end tonight. We have seen where, in other cities, this has gone on for days; and we need to come up with a better plan for days, at least for the next five days, to try and stabilize our communities,” Lopez said.

The aldermen said parts of the Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods in his ward had become “a virtual warzone.”

“We can’t expect our police, and I don’t fault them at all, to be able to control this,” he said. “Half our neighborhoods are already obliterated. It’s too late.”

Lopez said he feared looters would eventually start targeting homes after ransacking businesses throughout the city.

“Once they’re done looting and rioting and whatever’s going to happen tonight, God help us, what happens when they start going after residents? Going into the neighborhoods? Once they start trying to break down people’s doors, if they think they’ve got something,” he said.

“We know that people are here to antagonize and incite, and you’ve got them all pumped tonight, today. They’re not going to go to bed at 8 o’clock. They’re going to turn their focus on the neighborhoods. I’ve got gang-bangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? It’s not going to be enough,” Lopez added.

When Lopez finished talking on the conference call, Lightfoot declined to respond, and tried to move on to another alderman, but Lopez demanded an answer.

“It’s not something you ignore. This is a question that I have,” Lopez said.

That’s when the call turned profane.

“I think you’re 100% full of s***, is what I think,” Lightfoot said.

Lopez was infuriated.

“F*** you, then. Who are you to tell me I’m full of s***?” he said. “Maybe you should come out and see what’s going on.”

The mayor vehemently denied protecting downtown at the expense of the neighborhoods.

“If you think we’re not ready, and we stood by and let the neighborhoods go up, there’s nothing intelligent that I could say to you,” she said. “That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. I understand you want to preen.”

“Mayor, you need to check your f***ing attitude. That’s what you need to do,” Lopez shot back.

At that point, several other aldermen interjected in an effort to calm nerves, with one alderman telling Lopez, “Ray, cut it out, please. Calm down, please.”

It’s obvious that Lopez, who harbors ambitions to replace Lightfoot in the mayor’s chair in the not-too-distant future, leaked the clip. But as he told CBS in an interview, many small businesses in his ward won’t be reopening, largely thanks to the violence.

When we first published Kyle Bass’s “the Quiet Panic” back in April 2019, the investing community laughed off Bass’s leveraged bet against the HKD’s peg to the dollar as a novelty, and blasted Bass as a washed-up sinophobe who spends his days hanging out with Steve Bannon in an empty aircraft hanger.

When unrest erupted in Hong Kong a couple of months later, talk of financial stress was, at least initially, surprisingly muted. But Beijing’s clampdown appears to finally have brought HK’s chickens home to roost, as its currency’s peg to the dollar has come under intense strain.

During the interceding months, as Bass has admittedly focused more on politics and less on running his hedge fund, he has become so convinced that the peg will soon snap, that he’s cranked up to leverage on his long-term derivatives bet to absurd levels, hoping to reap another windfall on par with his bet against the housing market that launched him to investing superstardom.

According to Bloomberg, Bass has raised an undisclosed amount of money for a new fund under the auspices of Hayman Capital that will use long-term options contracts to place a 200-to-1 leveraged bet against the HKD currency peg.

Unfortunately for Bass, the HKD has been so strong in recent months that  HK’s de-facto central bank, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, has sold more than HK$40 billion ($5.2 billion) since April to prevent the currency from appreciating outside the band. Others have dismissed dismissed this recent upside pressure as the calm before the storm, as the US prepares to strip HK of its special status, threatening tens of billions of dollars in bilateral trade.

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said this month that the city is ready to defend the exchange rate and that, if necessary, the mainland would backstop the peg via swap lines with the PBOC. Other fears of financial stress in the HK banking system and housing market have also been relatively muted.

That could be a serious problem for Bass’s investors since, as Bloomberg points out, the insane leverage ratio means that losses will be 100% if the peg isn’t broken within 18 months.

Kyle Bass is going for broke on a currency trade that has burned bearish speculators for more than three decades.

The Dallas-based founder of Hayman Capital Management is starting a new fund that will make all-or-nothing wagers on a collapse in Hong Kong’s currency peg, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Bass, best known for his prescient bet against subprime mortgages before the 2008 financial crisis, will use option contracts to leverage the new fund’s assets by 200 times, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. While the strategy is designed to generate outsized gains if Hong Kong’s currency tumbles against the dollar, investors stand to lose all their money if the peg is still intact after 18 months.

Bass’s track record on HK has been impressively prescient, but still, the drawbacks to such a high leverage ratio means there’s no room for error, as BBG explains.

The trade is audacious even for Bass, who profited handsomely during the subprime crisis but has since had less success with doomsday calls on everything from Japanese government bonds to the Chinese yuan. A vocal critic of China’s Communist Party, the 50-year-old investor wrote in a Newsweek op-ed last month that Hong Kong has become “ground zero for the ideological clash between democracy and heavy-handed Chinese communism.”

And although we’re tempted to question whether his politics are coloring his judgment, if Bass does prevail, he will join a rarefied club of macro managers who have attained legendary status for reaping massive profits on macro bets, like George Soros did when he “broke the back of the pound”.

Bass reportedly told prospective investors in the Hayman Hong Kong Opportunities Fund, which launched June 1, that they could expect as high as a 64-fold return if the currency declines by 40%, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because it’s private. That would be even larger than the Chinese yuan deval of August 2015.

Whatever happens with the fund, at least Bass will earn a decent profit on the management fees. Bass is charging a one-time fee of 2%, and 15% of profits, though presumably he is investing at least some of his own money in the fund, as he has in the past.

Just how forward looking are stocks? With the Rails index back to all time highs this seems like an especially appropriate question considering the fundamental data which is…. well, see for yourselves.

Consider where rail stocks are trading:

Do fundamentals justify this price? Here is the chart of total carload and intermodal traffic for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Total U.S. carload traffic for the first five months of 2020 was 4,713,757 carloads, down 14.7 percent, or 815,413 carloads, from the same period last year; and 5,186,630 intermodal units, down 11.3 percent, or 661,703 containers and trailers, from last year.

And another way to see the unprecedented divergence:

And the details:

U.S. railroads originated 740,171 carloads in May 2020, down 27.7 percent, or 282,965 carloads, from May 2019. U.S. railroads also originated 912,922 containers and trailers in May 2020, down 13 percent, or 136,241 units, from the same month last year. Combined U.S. carload and intermodal originations in May 2020 were 1,653,093, down 20.2 percent, or 419,206 carloads and intermodal units from May 2019.

In May 2020, one of the 20 carload commodity categories tracked by the AAR each month saw carload gains compared with May 2019. It was farm products excl. grain, up 324 carloads or 10.6 percent.

Meanwhile, commodities that saw declines in May 2020 from May 2019 were coal, down a record 127,201 carloads or 40.7%; Coal carloads are down 26.1% so far this year and have declined on an annual basis for 13 straight months.

Motor vehicles & parts, down 49,341 carloads or 75 percent; and crushed stone, sand & gravel, down 18,196 carloads or 19.4 percent.

Excluding coal, carloads were down 155,764 carloads, or 21.9 percent, in May 2020 from May 2019. Excluding coal and grain, carloads were down 150,701 carloads, or 24.3 percent.

And visually:

In short, lowest rail traffic in years, and that was based on a trend even before the coronavirus, and yet rails stocks are at all time high. All we can is… “Jay’s market.”

With bankrupt Hertz surging again on Tuesday after a sharp overnight drop despite even CNBC explaining – much to Cramer’s disappointment  – why the stock is completely worthless behind billions in impaired debt and the only reason it is being bought is on expectations of greater fools, the FOMO mania is clearly raging among the retail investor community, which also explains how – as retail investors became the dominant price-setter in the market – stock trading has made even less sense than usual (take a look at BA, HTZ, CHK, NKLA and other popular Robin Hood stocks), the question is when/if institutional investors will come back and start chasing risk assets.

Answering this question, Goldman overnight writes that in recent weeks, most positioning indicators have become more bullish from the extremely bearish levels seen in March, adding that overall cross-asset positioning still seems slightly below neutral levels, with the bank seeing “potential to increase further if macro data continues to improve and lockdown easing remains successful” as the average percentile of the sentiment indicators Goldman tracks now at the 40th percentile level, up from the 5th percentile reached in March.

And while some positioning metrics, such as systematic investors, equity funds flows, and equity futures positions are still far from sending bullish signals – certainly far from the retail euphoria as millions of Americans working from home have decided to try their hand in the stock market casino – and could contribute to a near-term continuation of the recent pro-cyclical rotation, Goldman warns that “the large increase in retail investor activity, and narrow market breadth seen during the initial phase of the equity rally, could indicate that there is more stretched positioning in some pockets of the market.” Moreover, the bank warns, “options positioning indicators have started to signal the first stage of FOMO, and investors have likely hedged the upside tail via options” while at the same time fund flows into riskier credit have also increased materially, while equity fund flows turned positive last week.

Keeping a contrarian bias, Goldman writes that going forward, the bank which still has a 3,000 year-end price target would turn more cautious “if investor sentiment and market pricing of growth become too bullish, given the potential risks related to a second wave of infections, US-China trade tensions and US elections” even as the bank adds that at the moment, neither looks particularly stretched considering the recent improvement in macro data, with Goldman’s markets team framework suggesting that there is still upside to cyclical pricing if the consensus moves closer to our forecast.

Is Retail Leading the Rally?

As we pointed out first three weeks ago, many indicators confirm strong in retail investor activity in the US. Furthermore, recent data showed that US personal income has surged 10% MoM in April, given large support from government transfers. At the same time, consumption expenditure dropped by 14%, leading to one of the largest increases in US savings. In annualized terms, US savings increased from US$1.4 tn in February to US$6.2 tn in April. Unsurprisingly, the US savings rate is now at levels reached during WWII

Furthermore, as we also showed in May, although US savings remain highly skewed towards cash, recent data shows a significant pick up in retail investors’ activity in financial markets.

This confirms the record increase in US savings – largely thanks to government stimulus payments and various backstop programs – has supported retail investments into riskier assets. Data collected by online retail brokers shows a large spike in the number of retail trades in the last months. This has likely supported retail favorite stocks, which have outperformed recently.

Additionally, as reported last week and as Goldman’s options strategy team confirms, there has been a large increase in retail activity in the option and shares market. In fact the share of small amount trades (< US$2,000) has increased to 2.3% of total trading volume, up from 1.5% at the beginning of the year. This is even more relevant for options, where the percentage of options volume from one-contract trades has surged to 13%. Not surprisingly, the options call vs. put volume ratio has turned the most bullish among the indicators Goldman tracks.

With Retail unleashed are there already signs of FOMO?

According to Goldman, over the last week, options positioning has shown the first signs of FOMO:

1. the call vs. put volume ratio has reached elevated levels, in particular in Europe
2. spot/vol correlation has turned less negative, suggesting investors’ demand for call options has put pressure on volatility
3. out-of-the-money calls have become more expensive, relative to at-the-money, as highlighted by the increase of call skew across regions

That said, options positioning is not yet at the stretched levels seen during the melt-up in January 2018, when bullish positioning was extreme. Shorter-dated call skew has become more expensive, but long-dated skew remains much cheaper, suggesting investors are rushing into short-term levered positions while keeping a cautious stance longer term.

Finally, we summarize Goldman’s key positioning indicators below:

Systematic strategies: CTAs and risk parity strategies’ equity positioning remains at an historical low. Since the start of May, CTA trend-following funds’ performance is down 5% while the S&P 500 is up 13% and the GSCI 23%. CTAs performance beta to the S&P 500 is around 0, close to historical lows (Exhibit 2). As realized volatility during the rally remains elevated, and bond volatility has plunged vs equity, risk parity strategies have not re-risked yet and retain high exposure to fixed income.

Options: Options positioning indicators have started to signal the first stage of FOMO. Since the recovery, investors have likely increased their exposure to equities with options, as the volume on calls rose in comparison to puts (Exhibit 3). Both EURO STOXX 50 and S&P 500 call-put volume ratios are close to historical highs. In the US, the increase in call option activity has been primarily on single stock options, suggesting investors have selectively re-risked in equity. The call skew has also started to increase, and spot-volatility correlation has become less negative, suggesting investors have hedged the right tails in equity.

Fund flows: Fund flows remained defensively skewed, although last week, equity fund flow turned positive for the first time since April and money market funds registered the first weekly outflow (Exhibit 4). Since February, money market funds have attracted most of the inflows (c.US$1,200 bn) and equity the largest outflows (c.-US$70 bn). Corporate bonds fund flows have recovered more quickly, as they have been positive since the bull market began. US HY inflows have already outpaced the outflows during the bear market.

Markets indicator: Following the initial phase of the bull market, characterized by defensive leadership, investors have shifted towards more pro-cyclical assets, suggesting more constructive sentiment on growth. After dislocating from the end of March to the end of April, the relationship between cyclicals and defensives performance and equity has now converged to its historical pattern (Exhibit 5). This suggests growth optimism is now leading the risky asset rally. Our Risk Appetite Indicator has sharply increased to neutral levels, from the historical low reached in March. In order to push the GS Risk Appetite Indicator into positive territory, a continued improvement in macro data is required.

CFTC Futures positions: US equity net futures positions have remained light overall, and have room to increase further in our view. Hedge funds’ net long equity positions have continued to decline while asset mangers’ net length, which is usually more correlated with performance, has increased modestly (Exhibit 6). US equity future asset managers’ positions are now c.US$90 bn, still down US$110 bn from the highs seen in January. Futures positioning into safe assets such as gold and the JPY remains strong.

Surveys indicators: The AAII Bull vs. Bear indicator, which tracks equity sentiment across more than 300 individual investors, has picked up in the last two weeks and is now closing the large gap with 1-month equity return (Exhibit 7). The Investor Intelligence survey, which tracks sentiment from more than 100 independent investment advisors’ newsletters, has already picked up to neutral levels.

 

Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com,

The U.S. Presidential election coming up in November may well decide the fate of the infamous Keystone XL oil pipeline, with the conservative right and the liberal left facing off in a race that could shape the fate of the North American energy landscape for decades to come.  Politics is not for wimps–neither is oil pipeline construction in a climate that has labeled oil pipelines as pariahs in North America. And the Keystone XL project is a spectacular pawn in an extremely visible environmental battle.

The project is already underway and has permits, reinstated by President Trump. So, is it now really in jeopardy?

Oil Pipeline Commander in Chief

Presidential hopeful Joe Biden has promised to ax the entire Keystone XL project and has made it a part of his political campaign. President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has vowed to move forward with the oil project full-steam ahead. 

And this isn’t the first time the fate of this pipeline project has been tied to the highest office in the land. 

Former President Barack Obama nixed the project back in 2015 when he determined that Keystone XL “would not serve the national interest of the United States.” At the same time, he said that the project occupied “an overinflated role in our political discourse.”

True, indeed–and it turns out it is as true today as it was then.   

Is the Public Ready to Scrap Keystone?

Forget those politics for the moment. Is the public really ready to give up on a project that would carry oil from Canada’s tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast that rely on crude of the heavy variety? Are they ready to kick the habit? What is the alternative to this source of oil for U.S. refineries and for our citizenry?

The public battle over Keystone XL is perhaps not reflective of the true Keystone sentiment. While oil pipelines are continually scorned in North America–prominently in the media–signs indicate that U.S. citizens–for all their indignance over dirty fossil fuels–are not ready to make sacrifices that would lower the demand for these fossil fuels. 

Take auto sales, for example. Tesla has invaded the media as the cleaner automobile–a champion for going green and a hero in a battle that many hope will squash demand for fossil fuels forever. But what is being played out in the media–this climate consciousness that is politically correct and the often touted as the only publicly acceptable position–is contradicted by data.

What data? For one, data that suggests people really love those gas-guzzling SUVs. SUVs reached a major milestone in 2019, accounting for nearly 50 percent of all new vehicle sales in the United States, and more than 40 percent worldwide.  

As a portion of overall vehicle sales, this is a global record. So despite what people say out loud to their friends, and no matter what green bloggers and the media would have everyone believe, the data suggests that it is all too easy to admonish Keystone XL while commuting to work in their superconvenient soccer-mom SUVs. 

If the public isn’t ready to give up on those SUVs–and the transportation sector accounts for nearly a third of overall oil demand–are they ready to give up on some other oil-demanding practices, such as tech stuff like the internet? This is doubtful. 

Are there other alternatives to Keystone? Sure. Like resuming imports of Venezuelan oil, which is heavy like Canada’s. How about moving oil by rail? That idea is even less popular than pipelines.   

Even without a viable alternative, Keystone XL will likely factor into presidential campaigns. 

Reality Check 1, 2, 3

Will Biden really cancel the entire pipeline project if he were to win the presidency? Perhaps. Obama did. But Biden’s recent speaking out against the fossil fuel project panders to the Bernie Sanders’ supporters that Biden hopes will come out and vote in order for him to win. 

Sanders spoke out against the XL and even promised to shut down the existing Keystone pipeline after a roughly 9000-barrel spill, should he become president. 

Sanders has done a pretty good job bringing Biden closer to the left edges of the party, which is comprised of some who have expressed their reluctance to come out to the polls just to vote for not-Trump. 

Veering more closely to the left fringes, Biden is not only lashing out against Keystone XL, but against Canada’s tar sands industry in general. In an interview with CNBC, Biden said that not only has been against Keystone “from the beginning, it is tarsands that we don’t need — that in fact is very, very high pollutant.”  In an attempt to pacify the middle ground–and the steelworker and construction unions that typically support democrats–Biden added that we would “transition gradually to get to a clean economy.”

Biden added that he doesn’t see the Keystone project as keeping the industry moving, saying that that concept is “just not rational. It does not economically, nor, in my view, environmentally, make any sense.”

The current version of Keystone–operating for a decade–moves about 600,000 barrels of Canadian oil to the US every day. The expansion would add capacity to move 830,000 barrels per day.

Alberta’s Minister of Energy Sonya Savage responded this week to Biden’s promise to revoke Trump’s reinstatement of the Keystone XL project. “While we are disappointed to hear these reports from the Biden campaign, we remain confident Keystone XL remains a critical part of North America’s post-pandemic economic recovery,” adding that Keystone XL was the most studied in American history, but was careful not to wade directly into American politics. 

“Rather than speculating about the outcome of the U.S. election, we will spend our time continuing to meet with our U.S. allies and speak to Alberta’s role in supporting North American energy independence and security,” the Minister added.

While it is clear that Keystone XL will factor into the elections, whether it will truly bring about an end to the pipeline is questionable. If elected, would Biden return to the merry middle of his party, handing Alberta and U.S. oil refineries a much-needed win for their oil industries? Or would he follow in Obama’s footsteps and quash the unpopular project? We just don’t know.

But what we do know is that it is a near certainty that if President Trump is elected, the pipeline project will be complete. 

Nasdaq Composite and 100 are now both above 10,000 for the first time in history…

…because fun-durr-mentals…

The panic-buying in Nasdaq did not start until the cash open…

Retail bagholders large and in charge…

Robbing-hood indeed!