Good Monday morning. As hoped, the government shutdown is coming to an end, as 8 Senate Democrats defected, joining the ranks of Republicans in voting to reopen. As we covered last week, the shutdown was the primary chink in the markets armor. The shakeout over the last week was the combination of an overbought market and damage from the shutdown, and following Fridays sensational rally into the close a large number of (vocal) bears/shorts look to be trapped. Should Fridays lows hold, as we expect, the bears will now be forced to cover their short positions and go long (more fuel for the fire). We’ve seen this movie often from the 10/13/22 bear market lows, with each pause representing a “buy the dip” opportunity.

On the news, futures opened solidly higher last night and have only gotten stronger, with Nasdaq +350 as I write (+1.4%). It’s a risk-on environment all around, with Bitcoin trading up 3.7% , gold +2.2%, silver +3.8%, GDX (Gold Miner ETF) +3.7% and our new crypto buy r...