Stocks Are ‘Plunging’ – Cue The Peanut Gallery

I don’t know what to make of this anymore because much like U.S. politics, markets and market commentary have become cartoonish and the hilarious part of it is, it’s not so much the cartoon characters (people like me) that are making it that way.

Rather, it’s the “serious” people. Look at this:

There’s CNBC running a picture of a goddamn cowboy wrestling a bull to the ground with his bare hands (much like Henry Bolton chasing down and throttling a badger), and then here’s a CNBC anchor channeling Joe Biden to let you know he’s buying the hell out of this “dip”:

I’m here to BTFD pic.twitter.com/kmFys1ikZY

— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) October 25, 2017

So you know, you tell me who the “serious” people are.

As you can see from that cowboy picture, things have gone to shit on Wednesday, or what counts for “shit” these days. The S&P is on track for its worst session since early last month and as Bloomberg notes, “traders trotted out everything from the fate of tax reform and retirement accounts to generalized rally fatigue in explaining the suddenness of the plunge.” Here’s what a “plunge” looks like:

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Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite money burning vehicle VXX is having its best day since the market thought Gary Cohn was going to resign following Trump’s Nazi press conference in August:

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“Between earnings that are a little light on expectations, concern about a new Fed chair in the U.S. and an ECB meeting in Europe, you know the pullback is expected to some degree,” Themis Trading’s Mark Kepner told Bloomberg by phone, adding that “some traders are worried that the new Fed chief may be more hawkish than Yellen, some are concerned about valuations, combine that with an ongoing concern about a tax reform and you see the reason for today’s selloff.”

And then there’s the WSJ story which suggests that everyone isn’t on the same page when it comes to limiting pretax contributions to retirement accounts and by “everyone isn’t on the same page” I mean Donald Trump is saying shit before asking anyone – again.

“When you see the chief of the House tax writing committee disagreeing with Donald Trump, you know this muddies the water for the stock market,” Michael Antonelli, managing director of institutional equity trading at Robert W Baird said. “Now that we’re in the height of an earnings season, and earnings can stir up the pot quite a bit, just look at what’s happening with Chipotle.”

There you go, if all else fails, blame a burrito chain.

lol pic.twitter.com/eTB59DSxxP

— Walter White (@heisenbergrpt) October 25, 2017

And of course there are also fears that rising yields (so, 10s above 2.40) are going to trigger a tantrum. Because this line “matters”:

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Now go write your own script.