The Dividend Cafe - The DC Today - Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Today's Post - https://bahnsen.co/3LYNG0J Treasury yields dropped again, and stocks rose again today. The minutes from the Fed meeting last month came out today and said nothing new or unsurprising at all. ExxonMobil agreed to buy Pioneer Resources for $59.5 billion in an all-stock deal that represents the largest oil and gas deal in over two decades. I am not sure that an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza is imminent. Even though I am convinced, Israel will (and should) do whatever it can to eradicate and punish this atrocity, a ground invasion appears to involve so much complexity and challenge that much of the work I have read in the last 24 hours suggests it may require more planning, nuance, and particulars than was initially expected. The IRS says Microsoft owes it $29 billion? They should’ve used TBG Tax! The House Speaker race is going to be very interesting, with a majority of Republicans voting to send up Steve Scalise for a vote, but not potentially enough to get him over the needed line in a whole House vote. More here: Links mentioned in this episode: TheDCToday.com DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com

Welcome to the DC Today, your daily market synopsis of the Dividend Cafe, brought to you every Monday through Thursday to bring you up-to-date information and perspective on financial markets. Well, hello and welcome to the Wednesday edition of DC Today. This will be a real easy one to listen to. There's just a few things I'm going to highlight real quick. a few things I'm going to highlight real quick. I'm in a bit of a hurry schedule-wise, but also it's convenient that there isn't a whole lot that developed today out of markets. This absolute debacle and atrocities from Hamas against our friends in Israel have continued, and that escalation and the unknown of this event maintains its status as by far the most important story on the world stage. Within markets, you're now looking at four days in a row of stocks being up, three days in a row since the attack on Israel. attack on Israel. And the coincident correlated factor continues to be in each of these days, bond yields coming lower, pushing stock and bond prices higher. Today, the 10-year yield fell another nine basis points, closing at 4.55%. The Dow was up 66 points. The S&P was up about 0.4%. The NASDAQ up about 0.7%.

So nothing huge, not a major rally, but just continuation of this story of bond yields coming down, equity prices coming up a bit. Now, one thing that was unique today is oil prices did come down about three dollars. And so you had an adjustment to the downside in oil prices about, excuse me, about three percent, not three dollars. But that was around, you know, the aftermath of oil prices jumping significantly if you were really just talking about the Israel-Gaza activity. To the extent this thing escalates into Iran, I think that's a different story, but we're not there yet. And I'm not sure we're going there right away. I am sure that Israel will do whatever it has to do to pursue justice, but the specifics around that are very hard for markets to price, and that includes commodity price markets. The

Republicans did vote today for Steve Scalise to be their person they want to send up to the House for a speaker vote. Now, that doesn't mean that they'll have the votes when the full House votes. It was a closer election. Steve Scalise prevailed over Jim Jordan, who had received the endorsement of President Trump. And so it's very possible that you get a divided situation and they can't get a majority vote for a speaker if the Scalise Jordan rift is going to escalate. But no one knows where that's going to go either. On the headline level, by the way, the biggest real estate was up over 2% today in the stock market and the S&P. And energy was down a bit, but almost all of that was just from Exxon being down

after their really large $59 billion purchase, all stock of Pioneer Natural Resources. There's links to that story in the DC Today. And then this happened after market. It was not revealed until after market, but Microsoft filed an 8K, and I have a link to this in DC Today as well, that the IRS has told them that they owe over $29 billion in taxes. We'll see where that story goes to and what aftermath may be. So those are a couple newsworthy tidbits today. The world stage, I believe it's all about Israel and the markets. It's all about bond yields. And I will be with you again tomorrow, Thursday, in the DC Today. You know what? Actually, I will not be.

I have to fly in the morning to give a speech. And Brian Seitel will be handling the DC Today tomorrow. Thank God for you. A break from this space. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for reading the DC Today. The Bonson Group is a group of investment professionals registered with Hightower Securities LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, with Hightower Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor with the SEC. Thank you. contained in this research is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. The Bonser Group and Hightower shall not in any way be liable for claims and make

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