Mixed News Means We're Holding Steady

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I just returned from Baltimore this past week, having flown out of Raleigh-Durham up to the city. My granddaughter had called me to let me know that June 2nd was, in fact, kids-run-around-the-bases day at Camden Yards. The Orioles were playing the White Sox, and she wanted me to go with her.

That is not an invitation that one would ever consider turning down lightly. I found myself Saturday being dropped off at the airport, which takes longer to drive to than the actual 48-minute flight to Baltimore itself.

I spent some time in Baltimore and had a great time. We went out and had some steamed crabs with my daughter and her husband, Garrett Baldwin, and my granddaughter.

We watched the Orioles beat the White Sox—not a remarkable accomplishment, given that the only two teams in major leagues with worse records than the Orioles are the Chicago White Sox and the Colorado Rockies.

A win is a win, especially when you are seven years old.

She got to run around the bases, and the way they had it set up, we took her down to the field then we had to go around to meet her as she came off the field. The idea was you would stop along the way and take pictures. She was like Sporty Spice—she hit those base paths blazing. We never really got time to get too many pictures of her, but it was a great day.

An Eye-Opening Uber Ride

The next morning, I had done the Uber pickup thing and reserved a pickup. At seven o'clock this morning, my driver pulls up. I leave early for airports because I figure there has got to be lots of traffic, right? There was not because I booked one in advance for probably an hour earlier than I should have.

The driver was Turkish and had been here two years. He had to use a translator app because his English was just not fantastic, and he did not want to try to work his way through it. He talked to me throughout via the translation app about how much he loved America. He said, "Look, Middle East, there is always war and I cannot make any money. Here, no war, and I make plenty of money."

The guy was dressed nice, driving a really late model vehicle, and seemed happy. He kept espousing the merits of being in the United States, except for one thing.

We caught a traffic jam on the Baltimore Beltway. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how the population of Baltimore keeps shrinking, but that morning jam on the Beltway never goes away.

He points over at the construction and says, "Ah, two years, always work, never fix. Bah."

I hate to tell him—I do not know how to tell you this, but it has been two decades at least of always work, never fix on the Baltimore Beltway. It was his only negative comment about the United States of America.

I am always fascinated when I get an immigrant cab or Uber driver, and they talk about their experiences and how much they love the opportunity that they have here. Mind you, driving an Uber cab for 12 hours a day to really pile up some cash is not the easiest thing in the world, but they are thrilled to be here, thrilled to do it, thrilled to have the opportunity because the very worst job here in the United States is better than almost the very best jobs back in their home countries. Nobody is going to drop a bomb on their head tonight in all likelihood. I always find that informative and somewhat inspiring.

Market Overview and Geopolitical Tensions

The markets have reversed the earlier losses. We were down earlier due to rumors—well, there are no rumors. China has said it, the United States has said it—the talks between the U.S. and China are breaking down hard.

The White House says that there is probably going to be a talk between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump sometime this week.

The Trump team is pushing for it. The Chinese have indicated they do not really have an interest in it. Maybe they will give in as the week goes on. We shall see.

We are going to have a lot of tariff headlines again this week. The European Union has apparently said, "Look, if we do not get some resolution here, we do not feel like the talks are moving along. Guess what? We are going to accelerate our retaliatory tariffs."

On the positive side of things, there are some members of the Open Market Committee at the Fed, like Goolsbee, who said, "Look, if we can get trade policy resolved, rates can be cut as soon as this fall at the end of the summer."

Here is the thing: that is like saying if the Orioles had starting pitching, they would be in first place.

The big question is, can the trade deficits and trade discussions be resolved? That is going to be a tough one.

While I was in Baltimore, my son-in-law, an economist, took a call from some oil trader friends of his in Europe. They were a little nervous yesterday after the Ukrainians used drones to take out a fair number of long-term bombers, heavy bombers, in Russia, sitting right on the tarmac. Those are the type of bombers used to deliver nuclear missiles.

That was a shot to Russia's air power, and there was some nerves and still are about what the response to that might be. We shall see.

Technical Analysis and Market Positioning

There are lots of reasons to be nervous and there are going to be all kinds of headlines. Earnings season is over, so we are not going to see much out of that. We have seen the Fed minutes. I think there are a couple of Fed speakers out wandering around this week, but probably not a ton of significant stuff for us to digest this week. At least I hope not.

The real focus here continues to be what is going on with stocks. They are sitting right on a moving average. I know I am a fundamental guy and I always have been. We do real focus on fundamentals and margin of safety, but I spend a lot of time testing things and looking at what does and does not work. I have spent probably more time testing and examining technical indicators than most of the folks that you are hearing from that claim to be technical experts.

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