Short Term Trading Weekend Lounge: 21-23 Dec, page-15

Here's my song choice for the market and some things far more important.

The overnight futures profile was thick and short and balanced. Nothing at like yesterday's RTH or today's action. ESH19 profile update.

At mid-session we've had several competing factors driving the action. First, we had the New York Fed's top guy implying that the Fed's balance sheet run off is negotiable - should things get hairy. The market responded positively to those statements and was in the green but the threat of a partial government shutdown took precedence over what some may feel is the Fed's version of a Trump tweet...dodgy, unreliable a little too late. Dare we think it...the day is still young.

Perhaps we are learning that in a world driven by instant communication, governing by chaos is not a recipe for success. Don't tell that to the president, of course, for he has proclaimed today that the government could be shut down for a very long time. This outburst is a response to the entities that inform most of his decisions, most notably personalities at his favorite Fox news, who are giving him major flack about his loosening of the Great Wall funding demands this past Tuesday, vis the Continuing Resolution to fund the government.

Quarterly index futures/options and stock futures/options expirations usually result in drastically higher index/NYSE volume but today's final hour will also be affected by lower than average holiday participation; that light liquidity can exaggerate reaction moves to headlines; until next week, few influential players be paying much attention to what the market does with respect to either the NY Fed head comments or the impending partial government shutdown. The day is older since I started this but news flow is thick and hope springs eternal.