Happy Thanksgiving everyone. from the guys at The Option Edge. Here is a little history about how Thanksgiving came to be.
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. It originated as a harvest festival. Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after Congress requested a proclamation by George Washington.It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader fall/winter holiday season in the U.S.
The event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving” was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621. This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “thanksgivings”—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought. — Wikipediea
What to Watch for this Week
Bitcoin dropped and has now risen to above $8000 / BTC. Treat this instrument as a trading vehicle, not an investment. Soon the Merc will allow futures contracts on Bitcoin. These will enable leverage on the underlying and hedging on future production of bitcoin. This development will have an impact on the patterns we see in Bitcoin.
After Thanksgiving Day there is a second tradition called Black Friday. A day where some retailers will make all of their profit for the year over a weekend. Sales and specials, people camping at Walmart, and stampedes of people running to get the deal of a lifetime for that special present. Many pontificators will be asking what does this day mean for the economy and the market?
We will be watching the following as Black Friday unfolds.
- The overall strength of sales. $MANZ, $WMT, $TGT, and smaller retailers if they report.
- Who is winning at Black Friday
- A good indicator to see is the use of temporary employees. Remember the payroll report is seasonally adjusted. Any deviation from regular patterns could make the markets better or worse than the actual trend.
Global Spotlight
- Russia in the Red? Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, approved the draft federal budget for 2018-20 on Nov. 17, in one of the government’s larger struggles among the elites, ministers and big business.
- Let’s Talk About Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani are set to meet Nov. 22 in Sochi, Russia, to discuss the conflict in Syria and other regional issues.
- Seeking Compromise on NAFTA. After nearly a monthlong break, North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiation talks restarted last week with a bit of a difference in tone.
- Caracas’ Decline Continues. Standard & Poor’s declared the Venezuelan government in selective default after it missed a $200 million bond payment.
- A Smooth Coup? Zimbabwe’s succession battle escalated sharply last week when the military came out in force to stop the purging from the government of allies of ousted Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
- Kurds Compromise, Again. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) capitulated to the Iraqi central government’s authority last week when it issued a statement saying it respected the Federal Supreme Court’s Nov. 5 ruling that the Kurdish independence referendum would not be recognized.
- Merkel Struggles to Form a Government. Six weeks after the German election, Chancellor Angela Merkel is still struggling to form a coalition government, as talks between her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the pro-business Free Democratic Party and the environmentalist Greens have so far failed to reach an agreement.
- Havana as the Left Wing’s Vatican. Cuba’s intelligence operations continue to actively recruit young and ideological people in Latin America.
Economic Calendar
Here is a list of the upcoming U.S. economic events.
Last Weeks Numbers
Review Last weeks numbers here.
