Summary – A top-down review of interesting calls and comments made last week in Treasuries, monetary policy, economics, stocks, bonds & commodities. TAC is our acronym for Tweets, Articles, & Clips – our basic inputs for this article.
Editor’s Note: In this series of articles, we include important or interesting Tweets, Articles, Video Clips with our comments. This is an article that expresses our personal opinions about comments made on Television, Tweeter, and in Print. It is NOT intended to provide any investment advice of any type whatsoever. No one should base any investing decisions or conclusions based on anything written in or inferred from this article. Macro Viewpoints & its affiliates expressly disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the information in this article. Investing is a serious matter and all investment decisions should only be taken after a detailed discussion with your investment advisor and should be subject to your objectives, suitability requirements and risk tolerance.
1. The Evening when everybody watched:
Not only did everybody watch but almost everybody discussed it since Tuesday. New York City has a new Mayor-Elect that looks different, talks different & promises different. And his chosen song for the evening was perfect for him. Titled “Dhoom Machale” or “let’s have a blast“, the audience at the celebration loved it:
There is so much to talk about Mr. Mamdani, his brilliant campaign & the evening he delivered. But that has to wait until we go thru our main business of this past week.
2.They did act, finally!
Last Friday, October 31, was a day to remember in the arcane Treasury Repo market. On that day, there was panic in the markets & a total of $50 Billion was tapped, $20B in the morning & $30B in the afternoon session. Those who thought it was merely month-end buying were very rudely surprised on Monday November 3. Infranomics titled it as Meltdown in Repo Markets- Fed Loses Control as SOFR Spreads Soar, Emergency Fed Liquidity Surges and added:
- “Yields are spiking, the dollar’s surging, and a $2 trillion Treasury basis trade could be unraveling right now as repo chaos and SOFR stress echoes 2019’s liquidity nightmare. There is tremendous stress in the financial plumbing, and cracks are most certainly widening at a rapid rate A total meltdown in repo markets. SOFR spreads are soaring as the Fed loses total control.”
That was enough for the Fed and they added $29.4 billion in liquidity on Tuesday morning. That worked and that arcane market stabilized.
Then came the horrific jobs report from Challenger on Thursday. The summary from Reuters read:
- “The layoffs in October surged 175% from a year ago to 153,074. From the start of the year to October end, employers have announced 1,099,500 job cuts, a 65% rise from 664,839 in the same time period last year. So far this year, job cuts are at the highest level since 2020 when 2,304,755 cuts were announced through October”.
Treasury yields plunged & Dow fell 397 points on Thursday. But strangely, the 30-yr Treasury yield stopped falling at about 11:12 am at 4.676% & began gently moving up. Guess what happened about 1-hour later – Stocks that were being sold ferociously on Friday morning reversed at about 12:09 at a perfect location:
- Larry Tentarelli, Blue Chip Daily@bluechipdaily – Nov 7 – $SPY bounce at the 50-sma. Will look for follow through next week.
Not just the S&P:
- Larry Tentarelli, Blue Chip Daily@bluechipdaily – Nov 7 – $QQQ clean bounce off the rising 50-sma and reversed almost all of a -2% day, on 135% of 10-day average volume. Bullish sign – will look for follow through early next week.
It is quite likely that bad news about layoffs was factored in by the Treasury market & then by the stock markets by Friday noon. Add to that the $29 billion in liquidity added by the Fed. So this week’s storm might have cooled down. The next Fed meeting is on December 9, a month away and the Thanksgiving holiday is in between. With the terrible jobs news, the market seems to think the Fed will ease again by 25 bps on December 9.
In a sense, the best news as of Friday was that the 30-yr Treasury yield closed the week higher by 3.5 bps and the 20-yr yield higher by 2.9 bps. This we think suggests that the Treasury market has priced in bad news released so far. By the way the 7-yr to 2-yr Treasury curve closed the week lower in yield by 2bps to 3.6 bps due to the increased conviction about Fed cutting rates on December 9.
The stock indices ended the week lower but not excessively so with Dow and S&P down 1.2% & 1.6% resp. with NDX down 3% & Semis down 4%. The Russell was brightly up by 2.3%. And the positioning looks promising for an up move ahead:
- The Market Ear – Shorting – Hedge Funds are now shorting at the fastest pace since April.
And the Fear & Greed Index?
- The Market Ear – Lowest since Liberation Day – “Extreme Fear” with the S&P 500 up +38% since April 7th.
Fine but does anyone see ahead?
- Seth Golden@SethCL – Long wick, outside reversal days like this past Friday have been the precursor to the next leg higher in the bull market EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. in 2025 – $SPX $ES_F $SPY $QQQ $IWM $NYA $NVDA $AAPL $VOO
The above is an extension of what we have been writing.
From that, we move on to our NEW TRADE: – SELL MAMDANI BUY TRUMP.
We are being perfectly serious. This is NOT an emotional move. We begin with why we want to Sell Mamdani in the next section.
2. SELL MAMDANI
Our first trigger is a simple fade of a huge peak in sentiment that we saw on Tuesday’s Mamdani victory celebration. In addition, unlike his campaign appearances, Mayor-Elect Mamdani was loud, bellicose and even obnoxious at times.
The next day financial reality encroached a bit on him and he ran an video appeal for his contributors to send his campaign money. Then came a revelation:
- 🇺🇸 Pecan 🇺🇸@PecanC8 – Nov 7 – Mamdani is under fire for charging people $13 per beer at his ‘victory party’. “I arrived thinking everything would be free, only to be charged $13 for a Bud Light. I was shocked after all the hard work I put in,” one progressive campaign worker said. This is gonna be fun! 🍿🤣
This is small stuff. But it opens a window into the arrogance of Mr. Mamdani. We also think he is singularly focused on collecting money for his campaign & its plans.
But why does he need money with incredibly wealthy & powerful friends like Alex Soros?
Mr. Mamdani’s bigger problem is that every American political organization has woken up. The Republicans have just begun tarring the Democratic Party with the Mamdani brush, a tar that deeply embarrasses & even scares large segments of the Democrat base in New York. There is already discussion about examining the sources of his campaign funding & the goals of the major contributors.
2.1 – Mayor-Elect Mamdani & Diverse NYC Communities
NYC is a town of different racial communities that are supported by different wings of the Democratic party. In the past few years, the African-American community has been in the forefront of NYC politics. Are they, both the community & their activists, really supportive of making Mayor-Elect Mamdani succeed? What about Italian-Americans who have their own power base? And what about the Jewish-American power-base in New York?
Strangely, Mayor-Elect Mamdani went the other way. Not even a syllable about Dr. Martin Luther King or the recent African-American leadership in his victory speech! Not even a syllable about the Italian leaders whose names adorn NYC buildings. Did he even mention the various Asian-American communities that make up New York?
The only communities he touched on were the two that he & apparently his backers have problems with. He made soothing (!) comments about fighting Anti-Semitism while he has made public comments about arresting Prime Minister Netanyahu if he visits NYC. Yet, he did not even mention the massacre of Israeli Jews by Hamas last year.
It was strange to hear Mayor-Elect Mamdani quote the words of Jawaharlal Nehru, Free India’s First Prime Minister while he has labelled India’s current & extremely successful Prime Minister Modi as a criminal. But Mr. Mamdani did not follow PM Nehru’s practice of visiting religious places of worship of the weaker religion before visiting those of the stronger religion. Instead, as we read, Mayor-Elect Mamdani proudly visited a Muslim meeting and in a traditional Indian-Pakistani Muslim attire.
ZeroHedge reposted the below:
- Breaking911@Breaking911 – MAMDANI: “This is the first event I’ve done since I won the election last Tuesday” CROWD: “Allah Akbar”
https://x.com/i/status/1987293853032784092
Mayor-Elect Mamdani did visit a Hindu temple in Queens:
This photo was circulated on WhatsApp in India with a condemnation of the Hindu priests of the temple. Mr. Mamdani wore shoes inside the temple which is an absolute no-no. It is deemed to be an insult to God and the message condemns the Hindu priests in Queens for their cowardice. Why didn’t “Hindu” advisors or party workers from his campaign warn him? Or are all his advisors Muslim?
The above makes us wonder whether Mayor-Elect Mamdani visited a Synagogue yet? Or a Christian Church?
The above is mainly visual & psychological. What is worse is abuses & threats to US citizens in US cities because of overseas conflicts. We have seen what happened in New York against Jewish students because of anger against Israel’s actions in Palestine. That anger presumably still resides in parts of the Mamdani campaign in New York. That is perhaps why the Mayor-Elect has threatened to arrest PM Netanyahu of Israel if the latter comes to NYC.
Below is a video we received from an Indian acquaintance about Muslim followers in Chicago marching with a demand to boycott Indian grocery stores:
2.2 Crime in New York
The real fear in New York is about an explosion in crime & a Mayoral instruction to NY Police to NOT step in to protect civilians being attacked. Everybody remembers the Biden years & fears that those might return. But, as far as we have heard, that is not a major worry as long as Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stays on.
2.3 Reaction across America
This is the main basis of the Sell Mamdani part of our trade. There is not a single American in the country who doesn’t know about New York City. The tall buildings, the richness, the Stock Exchange are what every American is proud of. That makes Mayor Elect Mamdani & what he does a point of deep interest to people in every part of America.
The Democrat party gets it. You can see NY Governor Hochul already announcing that she controls NYC finances & budget and she has announced publicly that she will NOT allow budget-busting expenditure & raising of taxes. That seriously hampers Mayor Elect Mamdani’s big plans to deliver free benefits to NYC residents, benefits that might bust NYC budget.
Most people have heard about the state of London today. And already UK anchor Piers Morgan is telling New Yorkers you are next, meaning NYC will suffer as London has under Muslim mayor Sadiq Khan. That’s overdoing it in our opinion. But that fear will drive deep concern about the national Democratic Party. If NYC’s finances suffer next year, the blame would be directed at the Democratic Party.
They are frightened of that blame & what that might do to their chances in the midterms. So, we believe, NY Governor Hochul will be the Democrat’s flag bearer against Mayor-Elect Mamdani.
We can go on. But the above suffices, in our humble opinion, to explain the rationale of our Sell Mamdani trade.
Now to the second half of our Trade.
3. BUY TRUMP
Obviously, Trump is oversold at this moment; extremely oversold. So you got to look at Buying Trump here just for that. But we think this is a moment for a perfect bounce for him. Have you watched President Trump since Mamdani’s victory speech?
Watch him and you will notice that Donald Trump is smiling a lot. By the way, at this moment & at this moment of Buy Trump, the label President doesn’t feel right. Because what we have begun to see in the inner Trump, the True Trump who loves this fight. And it fits his Presidency.
Frankly, we feel now the way we felt when he came down the escalator in 2015. No one expected anything from him except a show. But what a show it was! And we might see that again. Watch the confident & even serene smile on his face in the clip below as he speaks of Mayor-elect Mamdani:
And hear the love of New York in his voice. You can see this is a fight he loves. We don’t think you will see angry Trump in this fight. You will see the 2015 Trump and the 2024 Trump at Madison Square Garden. And you simply got to bet on him especially when he is this crazy oversold.
Also the winds are going to be behind him. Yes, the economy will slow, jobs will be lost and the Fed will lower interest rates. But as everyone knows & as his team will keep pointing it out, President Trump has wanted rate cuts since early summer. Soon every one will see that Trump had the right call & had the Fed listened to him, it would have prevented the steep loss of jobs we might see in the next few months.
But the Fed has been so late & so much damage has been done to working Americans that rate cuts alone would not suffice. Ergo, you see what President Trump did today – a $2,000 dividend for Americans (excluding high income people):
How frightened must Democrats be? They now face a populist President Trump helping needy Americans with real money ($2,000/- is a lot for most Americans)!
In contrast, on the Democrat side is a new Mayor-elect promising a crazy scheme to make New York & New Yorkers poor?
Given the enormity of fright sweeping thru the Democratic Party, even President Obama cannot bring himself to say anything positive about the Mamdani win in NY. Think if Mayor Mamdani does cause financial chaos in New York, would you be surprised to see President Obama criticize him? No is what we think and that might even cause the utterly improbable sight of President Trump & President Obama jointly speaking against Mayor-elect Mamdani.
So, to use a Jeff Gundlach phrase, this looks like the perfect trade location to Buy Trump and we are.
Finally let us point out that Mr. Mamdani came across as kinda an old guy with old tastes. Why else would he use the old Dhoom Machale song for his victory part? President Trump is mentally young & we are mentally young too. So we use the young Dhoom Machale English song that says (from minute 2:05) of the clip below):
- “Dhoom again & feel the beat of the rhythm; Dhoom again & hear the voice calling; Dhoom again & see the shadows dancing; Dhoom again & feel your hear beat pumping; “
- “Now the time is right; So come walk out the door; Get down, get on the floor“
- “Let’s Shout, Break out; Come on, once again, Let’s hear it; Dhoom Machale”
So watch, Dhoom Again & BUY TRUMP.
4. Israeli Jews & Hindus in contrast to Some US Jews & Hindus – 2 examples
Think about what we wrote above about Jewish-Americans & what they might face in the Mamdani-ruled New York. Now think about how Israel might be feeling now. As we all notice, the young collegiate & ex-collegiates in New York do not share much attachment towards Israel. Remember what we all saw in the protests on US campuses including the big one at Columbia. In addition, Europe has already turned away to an extent from Israel.
India is also facing some of that but India is a big country with multiple options. And India has historical & current very warm relations with Israel. The deep kinship between Israeli Jews & Hindus in India is known to most.
In this context, think about the visit by Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to New Delhi this past week. What came out is a further strengthening of Israeli-Indian friendship & alliance. But the details might take a bit of time to be revealed.
Unlike Israeli Jews, American Jews, perhaps confident over the decades about their power in the USA, have not been as friendly with Indian-Americans. Their knowledge of Indian heritage, culture is miniscule, we think. In addition, they have to feel contempt about the timidity & passivity displayed by many Hindu-Americans.
In fact, Hindus in India are beginning to recognize the timid passivity displayed by Hindu Americans. They have begun to call it out as they did this past week. Look at the photo below & the superimposed contempt of the Hindu priests at the Queens Temple:
Mr. Mamdani visited this temple & was, as we all can see, welcomed by the Priests & Office-bearers of the temple. Note that Mr. Mamdani’s mother is/was a Hindu and she might have taught him some key dos-don’ts. One of the huge Don’ts is NO SHOES inside the Temple. And this temple enforces it with a large area outside to put shoes.
But as you can see Mr. Mamdani wore his shoes inside the temple in full view of priests & office-bearers. Clearly none of them asked him to remove his shoes before entering the temple. The reaction among Hindus in India was severe & first they said that Mr. Mamdani did it deliberately. Then the focus of their anger shifted to the Priests & Office-Bearers. The message pasted on the above photo & circulated was circumspect. But the comments accompanying the photo on WhatsApp were blistering.
In Indian parlance, this is described as boot-licking. This term was created from the British colonial practice of using Indians to clean their boots. The method used was for servants to use their spit to wet a piece of cloth & use the wet cloth to polish British boots. And, if a piece of cloth was not available, and if the British officer still demanded a perfect polish, the Indian servant would lick the boots of the British guy & then use his shirt to polish the boots made wet enough by the tongue of the Indian servant. Hence the name boot-licking or the adjective boot-licker.
The colonial British are gone but the habit of passively tolerating insults, even deliberate insults from a White person remains & is termed as boot-licking by those who consider such timidity abhorrent. And it is especially abhorrent when the offending White person insults a sacred Indian term deliberately despite knowing it is the wrong pronunciation. And it is especially insulting when the so insulted Hindu is respected for other qualifications & acts just like the above Hindu priests.
That brings us to the intensely disgusting act of deliberate insults to Hindu Sacred Figures below – a conversation between IBM CEO Arvind Krishna & CNBC’s Sara Eisen. Understand that “a” is often used in English script as old Britlish custom while the pronunciation varies between “a” for a man & “aa” for a woman.
CNBC knows this very well. In fact, we had sent to previous CNBC CEO, Mark Hoffman, references and names of prominent Sanskrut faculty at US Universities. This goes back to an article we had written titled A Case of Two Financial Journalists. To his credit, Mr. Hoffman understood our point and, we believe, instructed CNBC on-air “talent” to use the correct pronunciation using “a” ending instead of “aa” ending.
You will notice that Sara Eisen deliberately used the feminine version “Krishnaa” in referring to Mr. Krishna below, who certainly seems to be a man to us. We are appalled for two reasons:
- CNBC seems to have dropped a long term practice of NOT feminizing Sacred Hindu names on its network.
- Worse still, the respected & acclaimed CEO of IBM, is absolutely fine with this.
By the way the acceptance of feminization-based insults to them & to their sacred names is fairly common to even highly successful Indian-origin people. From what we hear, the reason is they think it makes them more British-like or western-like by using insulting terms for sacred Hindu figures. Many of them take pride in disrespecting Hindu religious terminology & beliefs in public to seem more modern.
For her part, Ms. Eisen, in our experience & view, has become the most intense of anti-Hindu bigots at CNBC. That was unacceptable to previous CEO Mark Hoffman but now seems totally acceptable to the current editorial management at CNBC.
By the way, Sara Eisen was informed way back with Mr. Hoffman that the pronunciation “Krishnaa” has been used for thousands of years to refer to Queen Draupadi, described in the texts as so desirable that no man could look at her without getting carnal thoughts. We don’t know whether Mr. Arvind Krishna above knows that, but it is evident he doesn’t care, probably lest his appearances on White TV be curtailed, just like to the Hindu priests at the Queens Temple, accepting Mr. Mamdani’s enormous insult to their Deities was preferable to correcting him presumably for fear of losing Mayoral benefits.
As we saw with the message put on the Temple photo, it is our experience that, with increased pride in Hindu tradition, the Indian public is fed up & getting far more fed up with such horrific insults delivered by US TV people & meekly tolerated by these US-Hindus with high standing.
That brings us to Gary Cohn, a Vice Chairman at IBM. We had brought this issue to him and argued that blatant insult to Sacred Hindu figures via feminization of their names is a prospective danger to IBM’s reputation & value. And IBM’s reputation is more important than any individual officer at & of IBM. So we simply suggested that Mr. Krishna should not appear on TV if he insists on his feminization of BhagVaan Krishna’s name. Gary Cohn, we felt, can serve as the public face of IBM & Mr. Krishna could run the company as he had done so for years.
But Gary Cohn, the same Gary Cohn who publicly said he was insulted & aggrieved by the anti-Jewish comments at the Charlottesville incident, is perfectly OK with the incredible insult to Hindus from feminization of BhagVaan Krishna’s name. He may be totally non-religious and he may perfectly accept a feminization of sacred Jewish names but we don’t believe, based on his Charlottesville-related comments, he would tolerate public comments of that nature. Guess insults to Sacred Hindu figures are OK with Mr. Cohn but not insults to Sacred Jewish religion.
That brings us to the second interview of the week by Sara Eisen on CNBC, her interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Interestingly the Chief Technology Officer of Palantir & Executive Vice President is named Shyam Sankar. Why is this interesting? Because the name Shyam is another name used for BhagVaan Krishna, both names refer to the BhagVaan’s dark-blue color.
And Shyamaa is a feminization of the name Shyam just as Krishnaa is a feminization of the name Krishna. Those who have heard of Vice President Kamala Harris may remember that her mother’s name as Shyamala, a more formal name of Shyamaa.
That makes us wonder whether CNBC’s Sara Eisen would call Shyam of Palantir as Shyamaa, a feminization. We doubt it because Alex Karp is Jewish while Arvind Krishna is Hindu & Sara Eisen is intensely respectful & afraid of Alex Karp.
As we recall, at the end of the above conversation Sara Eisen asks Mr. Karp a question that, we believe, has something to do about the impact of Mr. Mamdani on Jewish Americans in NY. As we recall, Mr. Karp said something like should you listen to experts or should you listen to yourself & his stated his view that Ms. Eisen should listen to herself. Seriously why does CNBC omit from their clips such key aspects of conversations on their air?
Watch Ms. Eisen’s two interviews above and see if you can notice any difference between the power level between Alex Karp & Ms. Eisen and the power level between Arvind Krishna & Ms. Eisen. Our own feeling, as we watched the two interviews live, was that Sara Eisen was the lower power figure seeking feedback/answers from Alex Karp while Arvind Krishna was the lower power figure thanking Sara Eisen for the privilege for allowing him on CNBC’s air.
Then watch the earlier clip of Israeli Foreign Minister & notice his apparent respect of his Indian counterpart. That raises a question – is this an issue about Israeli Jews treating Indian Hindus with respect & friendship vs. US Jews treating Hindu-Americans with disrespect as creatures of a lower faith?
How would Gary Cohn, Vice-Chairman of IBM, answer that question? We bet he takes the fifth because his honest answer could conceivably damage the reputation of IBM, his employer!
5. Hate expressed against everything in Michigan?
The above was about expressed contempt at CNBC towards a weak Hindu religion held in semi-contempt by many Americans. That we have been used to at & by CNBC on-air “talent”. But last week, what we heard was beyond anything we had ever heard on CNBC’s air from any CNBC employee.
Soon comes the annual Michigan-Ohio State football game, the most intensely watched & discussed game in America in our opinion. It is a 100-year old rivalry and creates incredible upsurge of emotions. Kirk Herbstreit, an American sportscaster and an analyst for ESPN’s College GameDay, relayed a story a few years ago about a prison inmate who refused to be freed until the day after the Michigan- Ohio State game. Why? Because outside the prison, he would not be able to watch the game.
Given the level of emotions, we are not surprised at anything we hear about the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry. But we were proven wrong this past week. What did we hear that stunned us?
Courtney Reagan, CNBC’s Senior Retail Reporter, said, as we recall, on CNBC’s air last week that she hated Michigan so much that she can’t even say that name on air & she omits it even when describing the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Report and only calls it “consumer sentiment report”.
Wow! Our first reaction was admiration for this level of hate expressed on air by a CNBC Senior Reporter. After all, we love candor & we actually liked it initially. Then on the next day, we saw her wearing a blue dress with yellow buttons on air! So we mocked her gently on Twitter about wearing Michigan colors despite her hate of Michigan!
Later on, we realized that Ms. Reagan’s hate seemed verbally directed at the entire State of Michigan and Michigan’s 10 million + men, women & children. That seemed so outrageous that we really expected a statement on air by Ms. Reagan or a CNBC officer apologizing for that expression of hate against Michigan.
Not only did we not see or hear such regret or apology by CNBC, we saw on Friday, what seemed like, a display of support for Ms. Reagan. It was a display of Sara Eisen’s image together with Courtney Reagan’s image on air, sort of like the below. We recalled that Sara Eisen also comes from Ohio. That jolted us because it seemed like CNBC displaying that joint image of these two Ohio-an reporters reflected CNBC’s acceptance of the hate against Michigan?
We can’t find the clip of Ms. Reagan’s expression of “hate” against Michigan on CNBC.com. But someone with the right media credentials can ask for that clip from CNBC under the Freedom of Information Act, we believe!
Hopefully CNBC Management, if they exist, will borrow some common sense and display what Ms. Reagan said this past week about “Michigan” and double hopefully ask Ms. Reagan to apologize to the 10 million+ people of we consider to be the Great State of Michigan.
And to think CNBC was once the media home of the late Mark Haines, the best & most honest on-air journalist, in our opinion. What a fall at CNBC?
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