Looking Ahead Reading the headlines today reminds me of that old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. Our times are anything if not interesting. And over the next week, the most interesting news will be only tangential to the economy and market. At the top of the list is the election. Just two weeks ago, it still looked like Donald Trump would win in a crushing landslide… and tilt both houses of Congress into Republican hands. The race was over… Not anymore. This is going to be a proper contest. After raking in over $300 million in campaign donations in July, Trump and Harris are now in a statistical dead heat in the polls. You know my view. We're screwed no matter who wins. Neither candidate understands economic freedom let alone has any intention of promoting it with anything other than hollow words. And neither has a plan to get the $35 trillion national debt under control. Yet the winner of the election does have implications for the stock market. A Trump win, for example, would be more bullish for cryptocurrencies, small caps, and other "FOMO" trades. A Harris win would likely be slightly more bullish for bonds and for the dollar. As the markets digest the election odds, you're going to continue to see sector churn as "Trump trades" and "Harris trades" duke it out. And then, of course, is that ultimate Age of Chaos wild card… the Middle East. While Israel has not claimed responsibility, it's assumed that it was behind the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran has threatened massive retaliation… but it's too early to know whether this is just rhetorical bluster or if Iran even has the ability to punch back given the utter failure of their last missile volley against Israel, which was mostly neutralized with the help of U.S. defense systems. Will Iran launch more missiles? Will it give Hezbollah the green light to attack Israel from the north, spreading the Gaza war into a broader regional conflict? We'll know soon enough. We live in interesting times… | 
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