"THEY THINK IT'S OVER..."

That was the famous call on the Beeb in 1966 at Wembley as the crowd stormed the pitch believing that England had one the world cup.  More on that in a couple of days, but today the same thing happened in all markets as the Head of the FBI, Mr. Comey, announced late yesterday that there would be no change in his view that Mrs. Clinton should not be prosecuted even after the discovery of new emails on Weiner Waver's computer.  Given the legal nonsense of the previous announcement this was to be expected but the reaction was something else again.

The DOW closed up 371; NASDAQ up 110; markets all over the world rallied on the news.  The conclusion was that Ms. Clinton was now the winner and everyone was cashing in early.  This mantra was repeated all day.  Wonderful stuff except it was all nonsense.  Few humans made a decision all day.  In fact, if one were to look at the S & P which was up 25 on the day, one might have noticed that it hadn't budged from the rise one hour after the announcement which was made on a Sunday Night!
In other words, the machines moved the market, pre-programmed for just this event.  Welcome to the brave new world of investing and meet your new broker, Mr. Algorithm.

I have no idea who is going to win the election tomorrow but I do know this: if Mr. Trump prevails the bloodshed is going to make the missed call on BREXIT look like a boo-boo on a toddler's knee who fell off his tricycle.  Which brings me to this question: if trillions of dollars are at stake because of a pre-programmed machine, has anyone thought of the risk of manipulation simply by a well-planted word or news story?  It is becoming monumental and possibly collusive.  And while admittedly I am way over my head in dealing with this stuff, I'm not sure anyone else out there--at least I haven't heard about it--who has a handle on preventing this from happening. Let's not even talk about the individual investor.  He's dead, he just doesn't know it yet.

So comes tomorrow and the match continues.  No point in mid-match commentary, we'll wait for Wednesday for the post game analysis...if it's over by then.

As they say in Chicago:  Vote early and vote often.