Market Continues To Climb "Wall Of Worry"; Shrugs Off Turkish Coup; Shrugs Off Brexit; Shrugs Off "War On Cops" -- July 18, 2016

Updates

Later, 5:38 p.m. Central Time: yes, the Dow and the S & P 500 hit new records according to Reuters:

Wall Street closed slightly higher on Monday to mint new record highs for the S&P 500 and the Dow industrials, fueled by Bank of America's better-than-expected profit and a major tech sector acquisition.  

Original Post

 

NYSE, Dow, S&P 500 will hit or flirt with 52-week highs today.

New 52-week highs number 163, including:

• Exelon
• Kellogg
• Lockheed Martin

New 52-week lows number 4, including:

• CVR Energy
• CVR Refining

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Hemingway In Love

A Memoir by A. E. Hotchner, c. 2015.

Like Socrates and Plato, Hemingway and Hotchner are inseparable.

This memoir is based on notes taken from time spent with Hemingway in 1948. The story could not be published until now. From the preface:

But looking back on those years, there was one event that seriously interrupted our adventuring: the consecutive plane crashes that Ernest suffered in the African jungle. He had been subjected to a near-death experience in the second of those crashes; that experience upended him, and he was determined to tell me about a painful period in his life that he had never discussed but that he wanted me to know about in case he never got around to telling it.

Over the following years, while we traveled, he relived the agony of that period in Paris when he was writing The Sun Also Rises and at the same time enduring the harrowing experience of being in love with two women simultaneously, an experience that would haunt him to his grave.

And now, to begin the memoir.

Later, July 19, 2016: I finished this small book in two sittings at the library. I have ordered my own copy from Amazon. Anyone interested in Hemingway needs to read it; it fills in some gaps. In a sense one does not learn anything new, but to hear Hemingway tell his side of the story is poignant and compelling. This may be one of the best "memoirs" I have ever read. Hemingway In Love is strictly about his love affair and his love for Hadley.

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Summer Reading

Books Being Read Right Now

Hemingway In Love: A Memoir, A. E. Hotchner, c. 2015
Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, Adam Hochschild, advance reading copy, c. 2016
Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths, Nancy Marie Brown, c. 2012
Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, Leonard Mlodinow, c. 2012
Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry, Ian Stewart, c. 2007
The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create The World's Great Drinks, Amy Stewart, c. 2013
The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The Biology of the Tyrant Dinosaurs, David Hone, c. 2016
Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of The Most Famous Chessman In The World and The Woman Who Made Them, Nancy Marie Brown, c. 2015

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The Politics Page

Because someone asked, but not ready for prime time.

Based on what little I know, I am 100% aligned with Rush Limbaugh with regard to presidential politics, Hillary vs Trump.

With regard to the Republican Convention in Cleveland and possible violence:

• the networks are hoping for fireworks
• it is noteworthy that the Ohio governor could not find a legal loophole banning "open carry" for a couple of days -- I can think of several ways he could have done that had he wanted
• "open carry" will result in a better outcome than had "open carry" been temporarily banned
• "open carry" patriots will put themselves between the uniformed law enforcers and the crowds, and they (the "open carry" patriots") will have their backs toward the uniformed law enforcers, and their guns on their front sides, holstered and/or unloaded
• the Cleveland command post knows that 99% of demonstrators are peaceful and sheepish; 1% are out-of-state anarchists; take out those 1% with immediate arrests and there is a better chance of minimizing Baltimore-Ferguson chaos

I do not watch network news (including Fox News). I generally don't read much about politics on the internet except that posted by The New York Times and The Washington Post when linked by the Drudge Report.

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Speaking Of Politics

HUD secretary Julian Castro breaks the law and uses the "Hillary defense":

Castro also expressed regret about his actions during the interview and never intended to violate any federal law, according to the report.

What's the penalty for breaking the Hatch Act of 1939? Apparently a news story in some obscure newspaper. I would assume Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg also violated the Hatch Act of 1939 when expressing her views on Donald Trump. This could come back to haunt the Supreme Court later this fall or even next year.