D&D Note (4.6.2018) ~ Administration Policy Confusion Rattles Markets ~ #StockMarket #Sell-Off

D&D Note (4.6.2018) ~ Administration Policy Confusion Rattles Markets ~

The administration continues to confuse investors after new proposed $100 Billion tariffs against China where announced late last night. This after the administration had said nothing new would be coming out yesterday. Even Larry Kudlow was caught off guard by the news and he is the Chief Economic Director.

If one thing is becoming clear its that even the White House is confused on its own policy and when and how it gets announced. The unorthodox approach of Twitter for major policy announcements does not help.

Much of the recent volatility is not so much about Trump’s proposals its how they are rolled out to the public and the seemingly confused cabinet.

The algorithms don’t look to be able to decipher “proposed policy” to “starting negotiations”. Investors and the market are caught between believing what Trump says at face value or reading between the lines to see his words as opening negations. The decades of D&D’s experience tells us that understanding how the algorithms trade is half the key to price discovery.

The futures immediately took the markets down last night and continued to struggle in cash trading after a weak jobs report adding just 103,000 jobs in March.

All the confusion left an unbalance of bid to ask with buyers removing bids leaving just sellers in the market.

2593 is the 200 day moving average on the S&P 500 and we briefly dipped below that before closing higher.

The DOW closed down -2.35% (-574.73 points)

The NASDAQ closed down -2.28%

The S&P closed down -2.20%

The only gainer on the day for D&D was SIEGY up 0.07%.

The worse performer on the day for the portfolio were APHQF falling -7.03%.

This week the portfolio closed our position in EMHTF and cut our losses. Today we used a portion of those proceeds to increase our position in RDS.A. Stocks on our watch list for next week are SSDOY, SAP, TTM.

D&D Investments firmly believes in Diversity & Inclusion. It has been shown that companies that are more diverse in their workforce return higher profits. With this thinking shouldn’t our government also be more diverse? We believe that answer is a resounding yes and are glad to see recent numbers showing the highest number of woman running for office in the House this year.

Currently woman hold around 20% of congressional seats, yet we know woman do not make up 20% of the USA population. This year so far 309 woman have filed to run for election in the House which broke the previous record of 298 in 2012. And 20 more states have yet to see the filing deadline pass. Also we have seen 44 women running for governor beating the record of 34.

For the House the party breakdown runs 231 filed for Democrats and 78 for Republicans.

D&D movers:

– SIEGY up 0.07%

– UNLRY (UNCH)

– APHQF down -7.03%

– PYPL down -4.02%

– CNTTF down -3.99%

– ITW down -3.86%

Indexes

– DOW down -2.35%

– NASDAQ down -2.28%

– S&P down -2.20%

Sector Movers:

– No sector finished higher on session

– Industrials down -2.75%

– Technology down -2.54%

– Financials down -2.45%

Notes

– US 2-YR 2.27% (down -0.037)

– US 10-YR 2.772% (down -0.06)

– US 30-YR 3.017% (down -0.056)

Volatility

– VIX 21.47 (up 13.36%)

Crypto (1:00 PST)

– BTC $6,620.00

– ETH $371.00

– BCH $606.69

– LTC $113.69

Metals

– Gold $1,336.70 up 0.62%

– Silver $16.345 down -0.06%

– Copper $3.04 down -1.12%

Energy

– Oil $61.94 down -2.52%

– Brent $67.03 down -1.90%

– Nat Gas $2.699 up 0.90%