The United States economy is full of innovation. It has to be. Manufacturing industries that dominated the economy decades ago - textiles, televisions, even automobiles to a large degree - have moved overseas, where labor and materials costs are lower. Yet the U.S. economy, even during the pandemic and the current period of high inflation, has expanded to record levels. If U.S. corporations weren't innovating, creating new products (such as vaccines and AI) and services (such as Zoom calls) and moving into new markets, the domestic economy would not be growing, and capital would not be flooding into the country. The current high level of the U.S. dollar relative to currencies around the world attests to the confidence that global investors have in the durable and innovative U.S. economy.

Crude oil (WTI) closed on Monday around $74/barrel in what has already been a wild ride of late. But that ride re-accelerated after hours as OPEC cut its demand outlook and fears lessened about energy facilities being targeted as part of Middle East hostilities. After falling to an October 1 intraday low of $66.33, oil had surged to an October 8 intraday high of $78.46. But WTI dropped to an intraday low $71.53 the next day, and then rebounded to $76.24 by October 10. With that rally, WTI had broken some shorter-term bearish trendlines and completed a bullish false breakdown. But as evidenced by events over night, the worry for any intermediate-term bullish call on oil is the lack of positive demand and supply news. And while it's hard to believe things will quiet down in the Middle East in the near term, crude could move even lower when hostilities do calm. As we've said, the COT data for WTI is technically bullish. But mid-October to early December has been the worst time for oil over 40 years. The SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) ETF has moved sideways since September 26 and appears to be tracing out a bull flag. The reversal in the dollar and interest rates that started in mid-September has not hurt gold and silver so far; once again, the metals are ignoring a rising currency. As we have been saying, the COT data on the dollar is bullish while the COT data on the metals is terrible (but has been so for many months). When markets don't behave as they have historically, we can surmise that something is different. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) looks like it might be tracing out a bullish cup-with-handle formation and a bullish continuous inverse head-and-shoulders pattern. A break over $30 would complete these. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

Nvidia is a leading developer of graphics processing units. Traditionally, GPUs were used to enhance the experience on computing platforms, most notably in gaming applications on PCs. GPU use cases have since emerged as important semiconductors used in artificial intelligence. Nvidia not only offers AI GPUs, but also a software platform, Cuda, used for AI model development and training. Nvidia is also expanding its data center networking solutions, helping to tie GPUs together to handle complex workloads.

Talk about an undecided market. As of the close on Monday, October 7, in four of the past five days, the closing range of the S&P 500 (SPX) was 13.6 points. That is two-tenths of 1% based on the price of the index. For the Nasdaq, the range in four out of five days was 14.76 points or eight one-hundredths of 1%. The Nasdaq 100's (QQQ) range was 0.83 points or two-tenths of 1%. The Nasdaq and the QQQ tested their 21-day exponential a few times and remain perilously close to breaking that average, while the SPX has come close to the average on several occasions intraday. Third-quarter EPS season is now underway and the next three weeks will be very heavy with earnings reports. Just prior to and just after earnings reports, companies are in a blackout period. During that time, a company cannot repurchase its stock. So in April/early May, July/early August, October/early November, and January/early February, there is an absence of demand that can create weakness in the overall market. First-quarter 2024 share buybacks on the S&P 500 were $237 billion and for the 12-months ending March 2024, buybacks were $817 billion. Currently, there is a 1% excise tax on buybacks -- and that could go up as it is an attractive cash generator for the government. We are in a seasonally weak period, with the VIX Volatility Index at 22.6% -- up from 15% on September 26. This shows that option traders are betting on increased volatility by bidding-up option prices. This is common before a presidential election.