What I Talk About When I Talk About Money

The Mural of the Machine

On this day, December 8th, in 1886, Diego Rivera was born.

I was lucky enough I had a chance to stand before his Detroit Industry Murals, when I had a shoot for Dodge Ram Trucks. Even though they are painted on plaster, you can hear the grinding of the gears. You can feel the heat of the blast furnaces. Rivera painted the modern world as a single, overwhelming organism—a tangle of conveyor belts, steel pistons, and human muscle, all locked in a complex, rhythmic dance.

He understood that the machine doesn’t care about the individual. It only cares about the output. It requires tension to work.

I thought of Rivera today as I watched the ticker tape. We are no longer building Fords in the way he painted them, but we are still inside a massive, grinding machine. The gears are just made of silicon now, and the steam is liquidity. And just like those murals, today’s market was a study in contrast—bright, powerful panels of industry sitting right next to shadows of fatigue.

1. The Fade of the Fresco

The session began with a burst of color. The major indices opened with optimism, catching the morning light. But as the hours wore on, the vibrancy faded. It was as if the plaster was drying too quickly, the colors losing their saturation.

Investors are cautious. They are looking at the calendar—the Federal Reserve meets later this week. They are the workers looking up at the foreman, waiting for the whistle.

• Dow Jones: -0.27% (47,827.75)
• S&P 500: -0.27% (6,851.62)
• Nasdaq: -0.15% (23,542.08)

The only part of the machine that kept humming was the Russell 2000 (Small Caps), managing a small gain of +0.13%. Everything else felt heavy, weighed down by “sticky inflation” and the fear that the monetary valves might not open as wide as we hope.

The anxiety is visible in the VIX—our gauge of market pressure. It jumped over 8% to 16.69. The steam pressure is rising.

2. The Bifurcated Wall

Rivera’s murals are split into panels. On one side, you have the medicine and the chemistry—the progress. On the other, you have the toil. The market today was exactly this kind of split fresco.

The Bright Panel (Gainers):

The new industrial revolution—Technology—refused to slow down. The Technology Sector (XLK) rose +0.41%.

• NVIDIA climbed 2.01% to $186.08.
• Broadcom jumped 2.65% to roughly $400.57.
  These are the turbines of 2025. Even when the rest of the factory slows, the demand for these engines remains insatiable.

The Dark Panel (Laggards):

But the consumer—the human element—is tired.

• Consumer Discretionary (XLY) fell hard, down -1.51%.
• Netflix took a significant hit, dropping -4.44%.
• Energy (XLE) and Health Care (XLV) both sank over 1%.

This is the “bifurcation.” The machine is getting faster, but the people operating it are struggling to keep up.

Conclusion

Rivera was a complex man. He painted for capitalists while believing in socialism. He painted harmony while living in chaos.

The market is no different. It is a contradiction. We have a technology boom happening inside a slowing economy. We have record highs sitting next to rising anxiety.

The closing bell rang, ending the session. The machine slows down for the night, but it never really stops. The heat is still there in the pipes.

We wait for the Fed later this week. We wait to see if they will add oil to the gears, or let the friction take over.

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I am just a man looking at the mural, trying to understand how the gears fit together. Do your own research.