"Irrational Despondence"

Bloomberg Market's Cameron Crise nailed my view of how this year has played out (my emphasis in the last two paragraph captures the essence of what you've been reading all year on this blog):

"When the market history of 2018 is written, it will begin with absurdity and end in farce. As ludicrous as the "too good to be true" rally felt in January, the current meltdown-on-anything feels just as misplaced. Seeing the equity market apparently dump yesterday on Jerome Powell's balance sheet comments simply reeked of irrational despondence.

Of course, the outlook is fraught with uncertainty, something that markets hate. But castigating the Fed looks misplaced, by and large. The Fedex comments the other day were pretty telling, as they cited a litany of political, not monetary, factors as the rationale for the deceleration in global demand.

Lest we forget, the S&P 500 rallied just under 6% in a week and a half until Donald Trump started humming "Tariff Man" to an Elton John tune. The good news is that getting solid wins on the trade front should be pretty easy if there is sufficient will; unfortunately for investors, they won't come until the new year in all likelihood."