Rocketman vs Mentally Deranged Dotard

Investors will continue to pay attention to the saber rattling between the Rocketman (Kim Jong Un) and the Mentally Deranged Dotard (President Trump). On the economic front, we have Consumer Confidence, Durable Goods.

Ze German Elections: On Sunday (9/24), Germans went to the pols to elect members to the German Federal Parliament. From this they will form a government. Even though Angela Merkel and her Christian Democratic Union party along with the Christian Social Union are expected to be the largest party winners in the election, they will likely fall short of the majority. Investors will be watching to see who they will have to form a coalition with. If it’s with the Center left Social Democratic Party (and the favorites right now to form a coalition with Merkel), expect the status quo. If a far left coalition was to form, (which the polls re not suggesting), we could see the German market go lower along with the Euro. The military industrial complex stocks could slightly fall as one of those parties platforms is to dissolve NATO and all German missions abroad.   

GDP Final Release: On Thursday (9/28), we get our third and final release of US GDP for the 2nd quarter. We get 3 releases, Advance, Preliminary and Final. The first release is the most impactful. However, if a line item were to surprise in the Final reading, the markets can react accordingly. The 2^nd release had the US economy growing at 3%, the highest in 2 years. If this reading were to be even higher, we can expect to see equities go higher. If the report comes in substantially weaker, expect equities to fall.   

Rocketman vs Mentally Deranged Dotard: Kim Jong Un’s latest message was that he would launch a H Bomb over the Pacific Ocean. If he was to go through with this, even with no casualties, markets could potentially crash. We would see a movement into safe havens such as gold, US Treasuries and the Japanese Yen (algos will also be confused as the Yen should weaken if the rocket goes over Japan). Even though doing that would likely be a suicide mission for the North Korean regime, it is unknown how the world would actually react and what kind of sanctions would be put in place. It would kill a lot of fish though, and you probably wouldn’t want to eat sushi from that part of the world.   

Consumer Confidence: On Tuesday (9/26) Consumer Confidence is released. Investors will be looking to see how much of an effect the hurricanes have had on this reading as it will be captured in the report. A scale back in this reading could see stocks slide.

Reserve Bank of New Zealand: On Wednesday, (9/27) New Zealand has their version of England’s “Super Thursday” by publishing their policy statement, Inflation statement, Official Cash Rate and Press Conference. For the country of 4M Kiwis, New Zealand will give us their latest ratio of sheep to people and consumer consumption of Tui beers. Additionally, the higher the ratio of sheep to people, then fewer farmers is converting their farms to cows to sell milk to China, signaling a slowdown in China.