Good morning. The S&P 500 rose to 10 points to 2,007 on Friday to a new record as investors shrugged off a weak August jobs report. The Dow gained 68 to 17,137, just shy of its July 16th record, and the Nasdaq climbed 21 to 4,583. Refreshing your memory, Friday morning the Labor Department released the monthly jobs report for August with it coming in showing private employers added only 142,000 jobs last month which was way below expectations of 225,000 and ADP’s report released Thursday. Friday’s stock gains capped a week of trench warfare with investors pausing after a very strong August and focusing on geopolitical events. Both the S&P and Dow rose 0.2% for the week. Stocks on Friday also got a lift from a cease fire between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists, but that changed over the weekend with renewed fighting between the parties which is impacting stocks this morning along with the west announcing more sanctions on Russia which negatively affects the EU economies, especially Germany. But what’s really impacting stocks this morning, and something I’ve been following but have not discussed, is that polls are showing, for the first time since the polls began being taken, the Scottish movement for independence has more “yes” votes, 47%, than “no” votes, 45%, with just two weeks left before the vote which is on September 18th. Goldman Sachs said that if Scotland does vote for independence it could cause a eurozone-style crisis for both Scotland and the UK economies. On this news European equities are getting hit with London’s FTSE feeling it the most, which makes complete sense, being down 0.87%. The negative news is being felt here with the Dow down 49.

Oil continues to feel the pressure. On Friday WTI fell $1.16 to $93.29 and Brent lost $1.01 settling at $100.82. Both Brent and WTI were down more than 1% in August. Oil is feeling the combination of ample supply and fears about slowing energy demand. Making WTI’s yoke especially heavy is the U.S. dollar which is at a one year high vs. the euro. There was more bad news for the bulls over the weekend with Chinese government data showing imports of crude expectantly fell 2.4% last month compared to August 2013. Economists were expecting a rise of 2.7%. That “surprise” is bludgeoning crude this morning with WTI down $1.23 and Brent down even more at $99.74. This is the first time Brent has traded below $100/bbl in about 15 months. Personally, I like my conspiracy theory. The West wants to punish Russia with sanctions and low oil prices. Russia has only two exports, oil and natural gas, (it’s like a gas station without the convenience store!). Russia’s economy is bordering on recession and depends immensely on those energy sales. So the West goes behind closed doors and says “We need to increase sanctions to punish Russia.” But Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, says “Hey, I have a lot of trade with Russia and this is really going to hurt me.” So the West says, “Hey Mr. Draghi (President of the ECB) why don’t you do a QE to lower the euro and make Germany’s (and all goods priced in the euro) cheaper?” Mr. Draghi says “Sounds good to me!” The West then reconvenes and say’s “Pushing the euro down is good but let’s also make energy cheaper to help the west’s economies while simultaneously hitting Mr. Putin in his pocketbook.” So they agree (with Saudi Arabia’s nod of course) to pound Brent prices and put pressure on Russia’s revenue stream thereby unloading both barrels on Mr. Putin. It would be pretty impressive, and scary, if this could actually be orchestrated but what good fodder for your next social function!

Natural gas fell 2.6¢ on Friday closing at $3.793. We’re not too far off the low of the $3.725 low hit in July and once again in August. The weather forecast (below) would be very bullish for January or February but being it’s for the middle of September it’s a bull killer translating into no CDD’s, i.e. no air conditioning demand. Although the forecast is bearish natty is bouncing being up 5.3¢ as I write. Although the A/C load is waning, natty prices are still below the coal equivalent.

Here’s something really amazing. Mary Barra, General Motors CEO, made an announcement yesterday at the start of an intelligent vehicle conference in Detroit that beginning in the summer of 2016 GM will begin selling Cadillac’s that will talk to each other and can almost drive themselves at freeway speeds. The auto-autonomous system called “Super Cruise” will allow you to drive long distances with the care doing much of the work. The company also plans to put vehicle-to-vehicle transmitters and receivers on all Cadillac CTS models during the same time frame. Now that is super cool! Have a good day.