Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Good Morning America, How are you?

My vegetable garden experiment in growing in compost alone is exceeding my expectations.  Day before yesterday, I made compost tea from (you guessed it) compost.  My plants did not seem to need any fertilizer, but I want to find out if I can grow larger production by weekly feeding of compost tea. 

I now have a pet Marmot that has moved in.  First, I'm not sure what damage a Marmot does to gardens.  She/He/IT is as big as the rabbits, and I put broccoli leaves in my compost pre-compost pile which Sparmot (my name) ate immediately. Sparmot (the marmot) eats grass and dandelions.  He has made paths in my lawn from eating grass and dandelions.  OK, Sparmot, you and I can be friends if you will leave my garden alone.  The Marmots that live on Washington State Campus in Spokane, seem to do minimal damage to the plants, and no damage to their grasses.  Here is hoping.  Sparmot gets bolder everyday, as it takes over Mt. Marmot (my woodpile).  My compost pile exists right in front of the Mt. Marmot, and yesterday as I turned it (in the rain), Sparmot was no more than 4ft away perched on Marmot Log (not rock), watching me.  I think he smiled at my hard work as he took a little R&R. 

Summary: 

·         Yesterday was another day of open high, move a very small amount higher, and chop.  As I said at the beginning of the morning before opening in NY, we should expect low volatility, and volatility does not get much lower. 

·         CPI (consumer price index) showed inflation at 2.1% beyond what the Federal Reserve target is.  For the poor and the middleclass food and energy are impacting the budget, but as you know, but the government excludes food and energy from the calculation.  Food prices have increased for six straight months, and it would be hard to figure they will decrease as California's water problems are causing crop failures.  In Washington State, the forest fires are impacting the orchards.  From Yakima to Wenatchee and on north through Omak, hundreds (maybe thousands) of acres of peach, apple, and pear orchards have burned (along with whole towns in the valley being destroyed.  The Federal Reserve believes inflation is all temporary, caused by geopolitical tensions.  Yet, geopolitical tensions are rising along with gas prices.  Ever since the Federal Reserve presidents started lip flapping outside, the public is getting conflicting information. Yellen says inflation is a "blip", and  yesterday James Bullard, St. Louis Federal reserve, saying inflation could take off as employment improves. 

·         Existing housing sales were up.  Compare the results to last June, home sales were actually DOWN.  However, the median price increased 4.3% (which is inflationary if that continues).  Many economists are calling for improvement through the rest of this year as the President and the Federal Reserve have concentrated on keeping mortgage rates low and forcing lending.  As long as employment is stable at the middle-class level, there will be demand in for homes in large cities except cities such as Stockton, Ca, Detroit, Mi and others that show city blight. 

·         With all that "good" news, the response (as you know) was ho-hum.  This was also true in the currency markets world-wide. 

·         Overnight in Europe saw European stock market prices rise (including Russia).  The S&P 500 futures are up overnight.  The stock market will open up.  Jobless claims came out at 5:30 AM PDT, and the labor market is improving.  The pre-stock market price barely moved.  New Home sales are at 7:00 AM PDT (10:00 AM EDT) tomorrow.  There is expected to be a nice gain.  All the data coming in from would suggest that indeed there will be no surprises in the report.  There is no earth shaking economic news that is expected to share the good news bulls in Europe overnight. 

·         No surprises (that I know of) on the geopolitical front today.  The stockmarket should hold the "up" trend overnigh, open higher, and slowly climb the wall of worry. Mostly it will chop unless some geopolitical news or new bank crises in Europe.  However, we are in summer trading months, and one would expect volatility to be low.