Everyone always expects a Santa Clause rally on Wall Street because adults are just grown up kids who have shifted the belief in Santa Clause coming to your house bearing gifts, to one who comes to wall street bring with him a rally in stock prices. Well this year, like some years when you were bad as a kid, Santa Clause is not coming. If you need to see what I mean, then please refer to the years 1948, 1957, 1966, 1969, 1973, 1971, 1994, 2000, 2008, 2018 to understand how bad news cycles work relative to the downward pressure in stock prices going into November/December timeframe. When consumer cyclicals seem to be the last ones receiving any bad news in these markets, then just imagine what its going to be like when one of the big retailers even mentions or hints at the consumer pulling back going into the holiday season. Then it will be an all out Katie Bar the Door and another huge drop in the markets at what was suppose to be a naive rally that like clock work seems to happen every year. This market is so sensitive to negative news that I would hate to be a programmed bull that has too much time on his hands and is itching to show his clients that they need him after such a horrible year because it’s only going to get worse. There are so many headline risks going into year end that can bring about renewed pessimism. Some examples are, China Taiwan conflict, Chine real estate market, World Wide currencies falling out of bed relative to the US dollar, Oil Price spike, bitcoin collateral risks, Ukraine war, more inflation data, and finally an irrational fed tightening more either with action or words. This is not me trying to sound smart because literally every year you can come up with 10 different reasons why you should be worried about a market crash but this year you have a tightening monetary policy that is causing all this tension. It all begins and ends with monetary policy. This year is different and is why I said it falls into the years I listed above. Go study those years and the mood in the markets and news cycles to understand what I am saying. This market is a land mine and if you think Santa Clause is coming to town this year then you are just a naive little boy with the knowledge of history of just that, a little boy! More