Good morning. 11:06am ET. Markets are open.

Not sure what I am witnessing.

​Interest rates are up, including mortgage rates.

Will go through the list of industries we track (equities):
US Banks are decidedly mixed, with an almost equal number up as down. 
Quantum companies are mixed to lower
Enterprise IT is a little lower, and most companies are lower.
Logistics and Transport is higher
Chips and Semiconductors are lower
Cannabis and Tobacco are higher (the small caps) and the large caps which pay high dividends are lower. Dividends are 'out of fashion' today in tobacco companies.
Crypto and miners. A few commodity miners and assorted stocks are up slightly, but the rest are down significantly. Dogecoin is up almost 5%.
Coal is mixed.
Retail is mixed. The largest, discount retailers are down.
Money managers are down, except for a few investment banks and money managers. Robinhood is up today $hood.
Oil, Gas and Pipelines are up today (mostly).

Overall, the market is mixed and no single industry or narrative is holding.
The FOMC meets on Tuesday and Wednesday, with a press release on day 2 indicating the new policy stance. Most banks are expecting a 75bps rise in the policy (or overnight and prime lending rates)  this week.

Good morning and happy Halloween.

It looks like a different market today than Friday.

1. Interest rates are higher (13 weeks through 30 years: US Treasuries)
2. Russia ended the Grain Deal, and wheat prices (which means food prices) are up. In fact, food (grains) futures are up significantly, including oats, soybean, corn, rice, canola and especially wheat (up 5.5%). 
3. The US Dollar is up slightly this morning, by about 0.5%.
4. Crude oil, precious and industrial metals, and US gasoline (wholesale) are lower today.
5. US equity futures are down into the open, suggesting a ~0.5% lower open today. This would claw back a little of the gains from last week, but not much. 
6. The news globally is generally local. There were deadly accidents in South Korea and India. Russia is escalating their 'war on infrastructure' in Ukraine. Brazil had a successful, peaceful election of their Left party candidate Lula da Silva as President of Brazil. As a reminder, da Silva was arrested and imprisoned on allegations of corruption and served 580 days in jail. He is now back in power for a third term, and suggests that Brazil's 215 million people come together, unify, and move forward. 

At the open, our CQNS Short picks are either flat or down slightly. Our UP long picks are down (12 of 14 are down).

After two minutes, all three of our CQNS short picks are up, suggesting a continuation of the push into 'stonks' we saw on Friday. The CQNS longs are still decidedly RED or down three minutes into the trading day.
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By Jeffrey Cohen, President & Investment Advisor Representative
US Advanced Computing Infrastructure, Inc.

Good morning. Notice a few things in the market this morning (pre-market at 8am ET):

1. The US Dollar has fallen significantly over the past week, and the EUR/USD went back over parity (currently 1.0081). However, this morning the US Dollar is stronger. Up by 0.35%

2. Copper is back to $3.50 / oz and other industrially sensitive commodities are also higher. Crude oil WTI at $88.12 / bbl is up there, along with silver at 19.35 / oz.  This is not the sign of a global economy in trouble now. This demonstrates either market 'restraint' or 'strength' as companies acquire future supplies (which is possible pre-war with Russia), or that companies may be cutting costs, but not production in Q4 and into Q1 2023. 

3. US Riskfree interest rates have risen, and bonds have fallen. Bonds are down this morning, and are generally very weak compared to where they were even just a few months ago. Interest rates across the yield curve are at or above 4%. This is great for savers, who can earn 4% interest with just a little effort. However, this is not great for companies or organizations (like regional banks) that hold bonds to boost current income through bond interest payments. They are holding bonds that have been weakening for the past few months. There was even a crisis in the United Kingdom about this when pension funds used borrowings, or leverage, to hold more bonds than they could afford as they fell in value.

So, what does that mean for equities this morning? Europe is down a full percentage point, and Asia was down. The exception in Asia is the Hang Seng, which ended up almost 1%. The Hang Seng fell dramatically earlier this week, so a technical reversal or 'bounce' can be expected. It was up almost 4% at one point last night.

US Equity futures are mixed. The Nasdaq Composite 100 ^IXIC is set to open lower by 0.6%. This is NOT surprising as tech stocks reported earnings yesterday and after hours and had issues. The Metaverse company $META, formerly known as Facebook $FB, traded significantly lower last night after hours (down 20% at one point as we watched) on top of a 6% drop during the trading day.

Other stocks may be falling in sympathy, but it is hard to tell. The moves are too slight this morning.

What are we watching today?

We have two personal holdings that hopefully will be profitable positions. There isn't much to do on those but to watch and either buy or sell. No need to discuss them.

We ran our model last night, and will save that update for another BLOG post.

Good luck to all.