This week the Board of Governors of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) met at Emory University in Atlanta to hear the pros and cons of allowing athletes to accept money for endorsements. It has been a long time coming.

 

This is an issue that has been around for as long as I can remember, but it has only been the recent moves by certain states, as well as the Federal government, that has forced the NCAA to at least acknowledge that the status quo is no longer working for them or for their students.

 

It is currently illegal for athletes to receive gifts or income related to their college athletic activities. If they do and get caught, the offending student and the college program can expect harsh punishments. That means students can't make money from signing autographs, can't sell any merchandise or memorabilia, nor can they cash in on charging money for the use of their likeness in everything from sports video games to college commercials.

 

At least that was the case until recently. California introduced a bill this year that makes it illegal for colleges in that state to penalize athletes for doing any and all of the above. If the bill passes, it would be effective in 2023. The bill states that any California college that makes more than $10 million in revenues from media rights would have to allow students to make money from their likeness. Students would also be allowed to hire an agent or attorney to represent them in business deals.

 

Mark Emmet, the president of the NCAA, has argued that this legislation would give an unfair advantage to California colleges over schools in other states. The NCAA would therefore bar California schools from competing in college championships. The problem is that California is not an isolated case. Twenty additional states (plus two members of Congress on the national level) are proposing similar legislation.

 

Finding a solution that is acceptable to the athletes as well as the 1,100 schools that make up the NCAA (including 353 in Division I) is not going to be easy. But it is necessary if the NCAA wants to preserve their franchise.

 

The pros and cons on both sides of the debate make a compromise difficult at best.  Overall, recent polls of college students by College Pulse, a student-focused analytics company, found that 53 percent of all students polled support compensating college athletes. Sixty percent of the students thought college sports students should be paid salaries, allowed to profit from their likeness (77 percent) and/or be paid if their image is used to sell merchandise (83 percent).

 

Those who argue for compensating students for their sports efforts say that being a college student-athlete is a full-time job, not an extracurricular activity, as the colleges claim. Sports schedules leave no time for students to earn money by taking part-time jobs, for example, plus playing in tournaments require so much time that students are often forced to miss class, which is the very reason they are supposed to be in school in the first place.

 

And it is not as if the money schools earn from the efforts of their athlete-students go toward academics, critics claim. Instead, much of the profits ends up in the hands of multi-million-dollar salaried coaches. athletic directors and some administrators. 

 

Winning college sports teams also bring an enormous amount of free advertising, good will, and alumni contributions into the school coffers that benefits all the students, the faculty and the staff of the school. Why shouldn't sports students be compensated for that?

 

There is also the issue of injuries. There have been repeated and numerous cases of serious injuries where college athletes have put their bodies on the field and now face the prospect of life-time injuries that end any hopes of a professional career while never ever earning a cent from their efforts.

 

From the NCAA's point of view, students are already (and always have been) compensated in the form of scholarships and other benefits.  In addition to free tuition, plus room and board, many athletes receive stipends for books and other basics.  This is a form of compensation, the NCAA argues, which sets them apart from the rest of the student body.

 

Remember too, that most other students will have generated an enormous student loan debt while in school that will plague them for years after they graduate. The college athlete, on the other hand, will be largely debt-free and possibly on the verge of a lucrative professional sports career.

 

Colleges also argue that only a few college sports programs are actually profitable, and that the money from sports such as football and basketball are often used to subsidize other athletics programs on campus. Finally, there is no ready formula on exactly how college compensation for athletes would work. How and by how much would compensation to athletes at one school be fair and equitable without, at the same time, be putting some other colleges and students at a disadvantage?

 

Whether offering cash compensation is better or worse than the present system of scholarships, free tuition, lavish sports facilities, and multimillion-dollar sports programs remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, the future economics of college sports is about to get a big overhaul in my opinion.

 

So far, third-quarter earnings results have been all over the place. A mixed bag of beats, in-line numbers, and some big disappointments have kept the stock market treading water.

 

Companies such as Caterpillar, with large exposure to China, came in with lower than expected results. Boeing, another big Dow stock, also reported a 50 percent slide in earnings thanks to the problems generated by two crashes of their 737 Max aircraft. And yet, both stocks rallied on the news.

 

Semiconductor company Texas Instruments also issued poor earnings, sales, and guidance, but in this case, investors not only punished the stock but trashed the entire semiconductor sector along with it. McDonalds, UPS, Lockheed, Amazon and Travelers Insurance, all mega-cap companies, also cratered on disappointing earnings.

 

To be sure, most of the disappointments were company-specific, so there is little one can glean about the health of the overall economy from the results. The majority of companies, however, are meeting or beating earnings expectations, which is what one should expect in a normal earnings season. Readers should know by now that analysts low-ball earnings estimates early, so that companies can beat Wall Street expectations when they report.

 

This earnings divide, thus far, does give some useful hints to those who are paying attention to the underlying price action. Most industrial stocks, for example, have sat out this year's rally as recession and China trade war fears kept investors away from investing in this area. So why did Caterpillar (CAT) not fall after disappointing earnings this week?

 

I suspect that some investors are betting that we are at the bottom of the economic cycle. While many analysts believe overall earnings for this third quarter will be down an average of 3 percent, they also think that this might be the trough in earnings. Bulls are expecting fourth quarter, and next year's earnings growth, to rebound.

 

If so, then cyclical companies like CAT could present real value. Remember that industrial stocks are economically sensitive. If one looks at past cycles, industrials were usually one of the best performing sectors coming out of a trough one year later.

 

The question to ask is whether this cycle will be similar to the last 11? That, of course, leads us right back to the trade wars and what the Fed may do on the interest rate horizon.

 

Do you bet on Trump caving in and rolling back all the tariffs he has levied thus far, or do you expect him to double down and implement the threatened tariffs he has scheduled for December? Given that most investors are worried about an economic slow-down brought on by an escalating trade war, those who are buying industrial stocks and other cyclical sectors are making a rather ballsy contrarian bet on the future health of the U.S. and global economies.

 

From an overall market perspective, some hesitation here (at less than 1  percent from all-time highs) is understandable. It may have been too much to ask that third quarter earnings would be the catalyst we needed to break out and up to new highs. We also still have a week to go before exiting October, a notoriously volatile month for the markets.

 

But before you despair that stocks will ever breaking out of this two-year trading range, remember the Fed, which meets next week. If they perform in line with investor expectations and cut interest rates yet again, we just might get an excuse for that breakout.

 

Nov. 21 will mark the deadline for the nation's lawmakers to approve a government budget for next year. Given the animosity between the two parties, the present all-encompassing focus directed at an impeachment inquiry, and the rage of many congressmen towards Trump's handling of the Syrian Crisis, is there any hope for a meeting of the minds when it comes to a budget resolution?

 

Right now, I would say it is a good bet that Congress just does not have the time to pass all of the 12 annual spending bills that are required to fund the portions of the government that Congress controls. Some of those bills will come up for a vote next week. That should give us an indication on whether there is enough good will between the two parties to do anything more than pass yet another short-term spending bill.

 

However, none of what Congress might do will matter if President Trump decides not to sign it. Trump has already said he is not interested in signing any domestic spending bills until there is an agreement on additional funding of his border wall.  If this sounds familiar, it is, because the same thing happened last year.

 

In December 2018, the U.S. Republican-controlled Senate unanimously approved a resolution to keep the government funded, but they postponed a decision on funding a wall between Mexico and the Unites States. Trump wanted $5 billion to pay for some of it, which would have fulfilled one of his campaign promises but broke another one (his promise to have Mexico pay for it). 

 

Trump might have signed it anyway, but criticism from some of his hardline media supporters (like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter), who called him "weak" and a "loser," stung Trump's fragile ego. The rest is history.

 

The federal government shut down from Dec. 22, 2018, until Jan. 25, 2019. It was the longest government shutdown in history. It ruined both Christmas and New Year's for an enormous number of Americans. Federal workers suffered the most from Trump's actions. And yet, after 35 days of misery, Trump agreed to sign the same deal he could have had five weeks earlier and avoided the shutdown altogether.

 

After over two years of turmoil, it seems clear that when cornered, the president tends to strike out, attempting to cause the most damage to all those who he believes are against him. Almost 50 percent of Americans support removing him from office. Republicans are criticizing him for handing over Syria to his "great friend," Vladimir Putin, and no one liked his self-serving efforts to hold the next G-7 meeting at one of his Florida hotels.

 

How better to alter these story lines than by once again threatening to shut down the government, unless he receives more money to buil his wall? Washington insiders believe his game plan could be to Divert attention from his problems. He could resurrect the image of ravenous immigrants attacking our southern borders, while blaming the Democrats for being weak on border security. He could even pin his failure in Syria on Congress for not spending enough money on national security.

 

Of course, the real victims in such a scenario would be the American people. But maybe I worry too much. Maybe the president will have learned from his past mistakes; but then again, how can someone learn from something he has never made?

 

Great Britain's House of Parliament is voting on yet another proposal to exit the European Union this weekend. While Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the President of the European Union, Jean-Claude Juncker, have a tentative agreement, there is no guarantee parliament will vote for it.

 

In this world of binary events, financial markets are looking at the vote as a black or white outcome. Parliament votes yes and the British pound, world stock markets, and the European Union (EU) celebrates. If, as they have done in the past, the British politicians vote no, then gloom and doom will likely beset the markets.

 

My own opinion is that a no vote will simply send the various parties back to the drawing board to hash out another compromise, which, in turn, will be presented to parliament for a vote. As I wrote several weeks ago, I do not believe a "hard" Brexit will on Oct. 31, occur as Boris Johnson has threatened. Either there is a resolution this weekend, or the can is kicked down the road one more time.

 

And speaking of ongoing debates, once again there seems to be a wide distance between what President Trump announced last Friday and the facts. While Trump claimed a "Phase One" deal was done, Chinese spokesmen said there is no deal forthcoming, unless the U.S. removes the tariffs Trump has levied on China.

 

In this age of disinformation, there is little trust in any news story, government announcements, presidential tweets or political speeches and press conferences. What passes for truth is largely propaganda, and depending on your political persuasion, you believe what you want to believe, regardless of the facts. Facts have become dispensable. You believe them if they conform with your opinions, you deny them as "fake news" if they don't.

 

This week, many market participants have been confounded by the continued strength of the markets in the face of the phase one trade farce. By all rights, the markets should have given back all they have gained, but they didn't. Instead, all the averages have ground higher and are now within a percentage point or two from all-time highs. The explanation is simple and summed up in two words — the Fed.

 

Traders are expecting the Fed to cut rates once again at the end of this month and possibly to indicate further interest rate cutting is in the offing. That expectation should be enough to at least support the markets. What could move stocks higher would be a robust earnings season, which has just begun. Week one of third-quarter results was not too bad.

 

The banks reported mixed results, but that was better than most analysts expected. Many investors want to see earnings results from the technology sector before making up their minds to either hold what stocks they have or just buy more. I suspect earnings will come in better than expected, but forward guidance will likely be neutral, or at least not as bad as some may have feared.

 

Between the Fed and earnings, the markets should be able to at least muddle through the rest of the month. Of course, that prognosis could fly right out the window with just one tweet from the Mad King. Hopefully, between the impeachment inquiry, the new outrage over Trump on picking his own golf club to host the G-7 meeting, and his fight to keep his taxes (two sets of books) secret, Trump won't have enough time to melt-down on China or the Fed.

 

But don't underestimate Trump's penchant to create chaos. Just look at this week's disaster on the Turkish-Syrian border. Of course, voting in a Vietnam draft dodger as our commander-in-chief was beyond me in the first place, but what do I know?

 

Last Friday a "phase one" trade agreement between the United States and China was announced with great fanfare. The problem is that nothing was written down, nor were the terms agreed upon. In the end, we only have a gentlemen's handshake. Will that be enough?

 

With the stock market up by over one percent, President Donald Trump spent most of the that day in front of the cameras crowing that China had agreed to buy $40-$50 billion worth of food imports from our nation's farmers. He repeated those numbers over and over, throwing in comments of how famers were going to have to buy bigger tractors to handle the business.

 

However, before the weekend was out, the official, government-backed news agencies in China disputed the Trump's take on what was accomplished or agreed upon. For example, China wants the U.S. to drop all the tariffs the White House has imposed on them thus far in exchange for Trump's $40-$50 billion in imports.

 

And by the way, that was a number that could be imported over three years, not next year. And no, the Chinese have not "already begun buying," as President Trump claimed. Many on Wall Street believe that the entire announcement was little better than a public relations stunt to woo Trump's farming base of voters back into the fold. Unfortunately for the president, few farmers or ranchers seem to be falling for the ploy. It may be that they also know who will benefit the most from these additional exports and it won't be the family farmer.

 

If we take pork, for example, (one of the products that China is interested in importing), the lion's share of benefits will go to global mega producers that are domiciled in the United States. Eleven of the world's 26 such producers are in the U.S.

 

And guess what company dominates pork production in this country? Smithfield Foods. And guess who purchased Smithfield back in 2013? WH Group LLC; and who are they? WH Group is a publicly traded food and meat-processing company owned by and headquartered in China.   

 

As for soybeans, another potential target of additional Chinese imports, can you guess who controls 90 percent of U.S. production? No? I will give you a hint -- the same company that is up to its eyeballs in 13,000 lawsuits over Roundup -- the Monsanto Corp. I could go on down the list naming companies such as Cargill, Dow, and Dupont, but you get the drift.

 

Thanks to the outbreak of the deadly African swine fever last year, China's domestic hog production has been decimated. As a result, China's pork prices have climbed 69 percent, while overall food prices in China gained 11.2 percent in September. That's not something you want to see happen when you have one quarter of the world's population to feed on a daily basis.

 

As you might imagine, China's sources of food production are a critically important strategic concern. Since they are nowhere near self-sufficiency in food production, the Chinese are reliant on other nations for food. And they also have a long memory.

 

Most readers probably forgot that back in the 1980s, the U.S. targeted the food security of the then-USSR, establishing a partial grain embargo in retaliation for Moscow's invasion of Afghanistan back in 1979. The embargo was finally lifted when our politicians realized that the only losers in the embargo were our farmers, since Russia quickly established alternative supplies of both corn and wheat.

 

Imports of American grains to Russia have never recovered. Fast-forward to today where Donald Trump (most likely not an avid reader of U.S. post-war history) is either ignorant or failed to learn from that lesson. But the Chinese have.

 

I believe that China may increase food purchases from America in the short-term, because it is expedient to do so and suits their purpose for now.  But over the longer-term, China, like Russia, will seek to develop more reliable (less political) sources of food supplies.

 

It is already happening as China imports more from Brazil and other food producing nations around the world. Reducing their over-reliance on the U.S. for food will most assuredly hurt our agricultural sectors a few years out, but hey, by then it will be another president's problem and who knows, maybe we can blame the Democrats.