Vegas, Volatility, markets and pitches

I’m here in Vegas to speak at the Money Show in Las Vegas and to network/research at the SALT Conference. This morning I’ll be listening and/or chatting with former Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, comedian Dana Carvey and a bunch of other meetings, speeches, etc. You guys know I’ll have my ears to the ground and will be sponging everything I see and hear to write up and analyze for you when I get back tomorrow afternoon. So we won’t do the Q&A today, but will have it as usual next Wednesday.

Before I left for Vegas, Amaris had surgery on Monday for a couple minor things and she’s back home now. It’s been a long, hard month for my family and for my littlest girl Amaris, who is such a trooper and who has maintained her magnetic smile throughout.

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it sure seemed inevitable that we would eventually have a big sell-off from Trump’s antics and the geopolitical volatility that’s been on the rise even as the stock market’s own volatility index has been at historic lows. Until today. The VIX is up 25%, but remarkably, it’s still only at 13 — and below where it was just four weeks ago!

I’m seeing some very nice pitches start to set up perhaps, and I’m likely to do some nibbling on some of our existing names, covering a short or two, and adding a new long or two in the next few days and over the course of the next week. Stay tuned…

Now I’m going to go down and get to work at the conferences. I’ll have a lot more analysis and a lot of insights when I write up my notes from this week.