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A dramatic shift in the market occurred this week. The tremors started Wednesday, when Tech stalwarts Tesla and Apple saw their stocks decline while the market indices continued to march higher. The subtle tremor may have gone unnoticed by the many, who could have simply perceived the drop as a rally pause after both stocks witnessed meteoric rises on the backs of what was nothing more than a stock split announcement.

This week’s financial news of note was that the Federal Reserve announced a dramatic shift in its economic policy making. Rather than targeting a specific inflation rate (2%), the Fed is now adopting a policy called AIT (Average Inflationary Target).

I graduated from university in 1995—22 years old, armed with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English—uncertain what career path to explore, but certain that the future was expansive and full of opportunity. I had taken an opportunity to move to Chicago and begin a career working on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. It was anything but a guaranteed path to success, but I had a tremendous opportunity to make of it what I could.

Summer is made for the dreamer. Perhaps like no other season, summer has the cunning ability to entrance us—to distract our thoughts, momentarily, away from future worry. The other day I was playing golf. In front of me were two young boys. The day was warm. We were playing a course I played countless times, myself, as a boy. I am neither a strong golfer, nor do I play all the frequently anymore. Yet that course and I have shared many summer memories.

There was a bumper sticker in the mid-2000’s that read “If you’re not angry you’re not paying attention.” Well, today, I say to you “If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.” Whether it is coronavirus, markets, Fed policy, social and civil unrest, tweets, posts, fake news, skewed news, social media, bio-medicine, technology…whatever it is, how do we know what to make of any of it?

Stock futures begin the weekly trading at 5pm Central time on Sunday evenings. This week, following the protests, looting and general unrest in the country the futures opened lower. Given the state of the economy coming out of the quarantining period, civil unrest seemed like yet another dagger in the back of the economy. However, that drop was extremely short-lived. By the end of trading on Monday the Dow climbed almost 100 points.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

Vladimir Lenin

Thomas Hobbes described life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” but in the spirit of a long holiday weekend I will try to keep today’s newsletter upbeat, light, and short. But Hobbes, like myself, was a bit of a curmudgeon, which is probably why I immediately attached myself to his words when I first encountered them in a university philosophy course. I tend to be pessimistic, assuming the worst from people and from events.

I’m really having a hard time letting go of this. I just can’t seem to get my arms around it. I mean our unemployment rate, announced this morning, shows that 14.7% of Americans are now unemployed…and the Nasdaq 100 is up on the year? Even the S&P 500 is now only down 10% on the year. Ten percent? Hell, our unemployment rate just jumped that in one month! What’s ten percent among friends, right?