The hard data on the US housing market has been weakening for most of this year but the blowback for sentiment in the homebuilder industry has been mild – until now.
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Federal judge bars Trump administration from enforcing asylum ban: Fox
Pelosi’s bid for Speaker on the House in jeopardy: Politico
Trump set to list Venezuela as state sponsor of terrorism: The Hill
Parts of Northern California suffering with record-high air pollution: WF Today
Troops at U.S.-Mexican border set to start coming home: Politico
Study predicts climate change will spawn multiple disasters at once: CBS
Global markets extend slide on Tuesday: Bloomberg
Bitcoin below $4500, tumbling 30% in a week: Reuters
Survey: economists estimate US recession risk at 35% over next 2 years: Reuters
US homebuilder sentiment for Nov falls to lowest level in over 2 years: CNBC

And then there was one. The slow grind of selling in global markets this year has left the US equity market with the lone positive total return for the trailing one-year trend among the major asset classes, based on a set of exchange-traded products through last week’s close.
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VP Pence’s tough talk on China fans fears of new Cold War: Bloomberg
EU tells UK that Brexit deal can’t be renegoitated: Reuters
UK’s May headed for political battle with party rebels over Brexit: AP
Northern California wildfire death toll rises to 77; 10,000 homes burned: KGO-TV
Anti-caravan protesters march in Tijuana, Mexico: SDUT
Skeptics question the yield curve’s predictive powers: Bloomberg
US mfg sector faces a shortage of skilled workers: MIT Technology Review
Vanguard: US core inflation to hold near 2%, possibly slipping in 2019: Vanguard
KC Fed Mfg Index points to stronger growth for sector in November: KC Fed
US industrial output’s annual growth decelerated to 4.1% in Oct: MW

● Money and Government: The Past and Future of Economics
By Robert Skidelsky
Summary via publisher (Yale University Press)
The dominant view in economics is that money and government should play only minor roles in economic life. Economic outcomes, it is claimed, are best left to the “invisible hand” of the market. Yet these claims remain staunchly unsettled. The view taken in this important new book is that the omnipresence of uncertainty makes money and government essential features of any market economy. Since Adam Smith, classical economics has espoused non-intervention in markets. The Great Depression brought Keynesian economics to the fore; but stagflation in the 1970s brought a return to small-state orthodoxy. The 2008 global financial crash should have brought a reevaluation of that stance; instead the response has been punishing austerity and anemic recovery. This book aims to reintroduce Keynes’s central insights to a new generation of economists, and embolden them to return money and government to the starring roles in the economic drama that they deserve.
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Economic headwinds may lead to a pause in 2019 for the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates, the central bank’s chairman said earlier this week. But Jerome Powell outlined a mostly positive view of the US economy and market sentiment continues to price in a moderately high probability that the Fed will lift its target rate at next month’s policy meeting.
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North Korea tests ‘high-tech’ weapon: CNN
Florida’s US Senate race headed for manual recount: Reuters
Brexit deal triggers political crisis; UK Prime Minister fights for survival: Reuters
S. East Asia may be forced to choose between US and China: Bloomberg
Fed considers a rate pause in 2019: Bloomberg
US District Court appears to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: NBC
Business inventories in US rose slightly in September: Reuters
US jobless claims rose last week but labor market remains tight: WSJ
NY and Philly Fed indexes show manufacturing sector still solid: MW
Oil-price slide points to end of  global reflation trend: Lance Roberts
US retail surged in October following back-to-back declines: MarketWatch

The slide in global markets in recent weeks has cut prices near and far, but the steepest declines for the trailing five-year return – a proxy for the value factor – are still linked with the dive in commodities. That was true for the deep-value list in October and the profile is intact in today’s update, which reflects trading through yesterday (Nov. 14).
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Death toll rises to 56 in Northern California’s fire: NBC
Liability costs from California fires threaten electric utility PG&E: CNN
China outlines trade concessions to US ahead of G20 meeting: Bloomberg
Two UK ministers quit after May announces cabinet backs Brexit deal: Reuters
Israel’s political turmoil creates challenges for US Mideast peace plan: Bloomberg
Fed Chairman Powell is “happy about the state of the economy right now”: MW
Business inflation trend in Nov ticked down to annual 2.2% pace : Atlanta Fed
US consumer inflation trend edged up in Oct as core inflation slipped: MW

It’s old news that managing expectations is usually the main challenge in finding success with an investment strategy. To paraphrase Pogo in the quest to earn a respectable return through time, we’ve met the enemy of prudent behavior and he is us. Less obvious is the tendency for this behavioral risk to go to extremes early on in the period immediately following the establishment of a new investment. By comparison, a decade or more into the holding period — assuming you make it that far — is relatively safe from a behavioral perspective.
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