It’s not terrible, it’s just a fact born of convenience. The precise value of a fund cannot be instantaneously calculated in the flux of trading, with orders pending.
By the same token, if you buy, you also get the lower, settled price. Also, the price can rise into close, therefore benefiting sellers.
Interesting day coming. To our camp, all of this came exactly on cue before the midterms. Today real money, not just 401k stuff, might come into play, but not to acquire long positions. Rates have finally made one fundamental somewhat meaningful again, that being debt load. Also profitability. If other fundamentals regain some meaning, that will be a huge step toward market rationalization, and “true”, or undistorted, price discovery.
This whole thing wih China...the problem is that Chinese are greedy, and went everywhere they thought they could make a quick buck—including the US, and oil and US-strategic countries around the world. Many Chinese are just as interested in the US doing well as they are in China doing well—not just as a market for their goods, but as an investment.
That interest, battling their need to save face, means unrest within China, which is difficult to read, even for Chinese. The US believes it has the screws on China, and I think they’re right, China is in too deep.
So I don’t see China as an actual factor in a real market correction; what I do see as the factor is US politics. Not US policies, but politics, which center around elections. I think that there will be turbulence until midterms, but that once they are concluded, markets will rise mo matter what the outcome.
I think that the big one is still in the future, but that some money can be made over the next month. If R wins midterms I think there will be a market bump, but that resistance forces will crash it for real before the next presidential election. Only by really burning pensions and retirements to the ground can they successfully sell their preferred brand of socialism to a (super)majority of voters.
Right now there is still made an argument that people find believable that we can right the ship by working within the existing system. That has been the situation for a long time now, through this whole bull market. For real socialism to have any chance, this system will have to be proven unworkable—which means inflicting pain on the everyman now, not just kicking the can a bit further down the road by assuming more debt.
Can this be achieved by the D’s without the presidency? Maybe. I used to think that they couldn’t do it without slitting their own throats, but at this point the electorate has proven that it is impervious to reason and votes not the facts, but its prejudice. In the battle for “hearts and minds” within the US, I think that you can now forget about the minds.
What would be the exact mechanism they would use to burn it to the ground? We have our ideas, but acting through the Fed is a significant one, if for no other reason than that it is even possible, in the short term. Banks won’t mind, the ones that matter are completely propped up and insulated with guarantees. If you want consistent returns, go with banks in eiher bonds or equities, depending.
My 2 cents. Futures down a bit, I am sensing pre-open confusion. We will see if they can get it together.