Today's Non-Farm Payrolls report was mediocre, and the lack of wage growth was discouraging.
Markets had big swings up and down early on before they settled into their own form of low volume mediocrity.
The big resistance is fairly obvious underneath this pricing action here, and I suspect strongly that the next moves will be determined by the course of geopolitical events, or the lack thereof.
Some years ago I used to take the occasional trip down to Key West when I was in the southern Florida area on a long business trips, and visiting friends in the Miami and Tampa areas. My wife often came with me before the children arrived.
On one trip we rented a big green station wagon we nicknamed 'The Shark' and drove down the keys to Key West. It was a wonderful, generally unspoiled place. I wanted to see Hemingway's house down there, which is a great stop, and also wanted to stand at the beginning of US Route 1, and the southernmost point of the US.
I had a chuckle or two at Hemingway's. The receptacle he had tiled and turned into a fountain for the cats from the original Sloppy Joe's Bar is a hoot. And the way in which they constructed the brick fence and the backing for it made me laugh out loud. I won't give anything away. You'll have to go down to see it. I was never much of a Hemingway (or Fitzgerald fan) much past high school, but he was certainly interesting, and I liked his house there quite a bit. It would have suited my tastes quite well..
I flew in one time, and the airport was a one room building with a little area for baggage. It was remarkably simple. We had been there a few times a year, but on the last few visits in the late 1990's the town and beaches seem to have gotten much more built up and touristy, like Las Vegas. The housing prices had gone through the roof, and hotel and resort developments have changed the character of the place. From the pictures it looks like they have jammed the place up with condominiums.
Still, I am sure that it is still nice to have some fresh lobster and conch chowder, and go down to the quay at Mallory Square for the sunset if you get a chance, and watch the natives gather. lol. We still have some baskets of shells which we had gathered while walking hand in hand on the beaches in the 1970's.
It's the weekend. Have a good one.
