Okay, so Black Friday's in the rearview mirror. The hordes have dispersed, the credit card bills are mounting, and Wall Street...edged higher? Gimme a break. Are we really supposed to believe this post-Thanksgiving blip is anything more than a sugar rush before the inevitable crash?
Wall Street edges higher in thin post-holiday trade By Reuters
"Recovery"? More Like Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic
The "Recovery" Narrative
They're spinning it as gains in retail and a "recovery" in tech stocks. Intel, apparently, is the new messiah, jumping 10.2% because some analyst thinks they'll be shipping Apple's low-end processors in *2027*. 2027! That's like betting your rent money on a horse race that's happening three years from now.
And what about the "strengthened expectations" for a Fed rate cut in December? Oh, joy, more cheap money flooding the system to prop up zombie companies and inflate asset bubbles. How many times are we gonna fall for this trick?
All the major S&P 500 sectors were up, except healthcare. Big Pharma took a hit, down 2.6%. Is this a sign that maybe, just maybe, people are starting to wake up to the price-gouging racket they've been running for decades? Probably not. It's probably just a temporary dip before they invent some new disease to profit from.
"Cooling Issue" or Systemic Meltdown in Disguise?
Glitches in the Matrix
Oh, and let's not forget the little "outage" at CME Group that froze currencies, commodities, and equity contracts. A "cooling issue" at their data centers, they say. Right. Because massive, interconnected financial systems are totally reliable and never vulnerable to, say, a well-placed cyberattack. Joe Saluzzi at Themis Trading called it "lucky" that the outage didn't have a bigger effect because it was a low-volume day. Lucky? Seriously? We're relying on luck to keep the global financial system from imploding?
It does point to the risk offcourse.
Futures trading was disrupted. So what happens when the machines actually fail? When the algorithms go haywire and start trading against each other in some kind of Skynet-esque nightmare scenario? We're all screwed, that's what.
Speaking of nightmares, I had to spend three hours on hold with my internet provider yesterday. They expect me to believe this nonsense, and honestly...
AI Hype Train Running on Fumes, Says Market (Finally)
The Big Picture (or Lack Thereof)
The Nasdaq closed down 1.51% *for the month*, reflecting "growing concerns about stretched AI and tech valuations." See, even the market is starting to realize that this whole AI hype train is running on fumes. We're promised self-driving cars and robot butlers, but all we're getting is slightly better targeted advertising and algorithms that can write mediocre articles.
Talley Léger at the Wealth Consulting Group thinks U.S. markets could be set for an upbeat year-end, citing continued Fed rate cuts and softening bond yields. But I don't know. Is this optimism based on reality, or just wishful thinking fueled by cheap money and holiday cheer?
Is This Thing Even Real?
So, what's the takeaway here? Black Friday came and went, the market wobbled upwards, and the same old problems are still lurking beneath the surface. The AI bubble is still inflated, the Fed is still printing money, and the entire system is still vulnerable to a random "cooling issue" at a data center. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but it feels like we're rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
So That's All There Is?
