The DC Today - Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Today's Post - https://bahnsen.co/3OnePfQ

So markets rallied hard today as both sides in this Biden/McCarthy negotiation assured listeners that a default won’t happen. Here’s the lay of the land in the debt ceiling debate:

It is fair to say “deadlines” thrown out for various actors in this are more bark than bite – negotiating tactics and all that stuff.

No one can really say when they have to start prioritizing payments because they don’t know what exactly June 15 tax receipts will look like. There will be lots of “rounds” in this negotiating process The White House largely believes it is more to their political benefit to be seen as getting a deal done than to be seen as fighting with the Republicans Noise is not material to a portfolio. One need not know what happens between now and whatever the X date is to know that on the other side of the X date, it will be like this noise never happened. For us contrarians, it is worth noting that cash levels are now the highest they have been all year and bond allocations are the highest they have been since 2009. And the recent Bank of America survey had money managers the most pessimistic as they have been all year. Keep this up, and we may end up seeing a full-blown boost of economic expansion … =)

Links mentioned in this episode: TheDCToday.com DividendCafe.com TheBahnsenGroup.com