Late Thursday — while the Chicago Cubs were busy giving up the MLB crown to the LA Dodgers — a major cog in the tax reform wheel was secured by the U.S. Congress, which set a blueprint for its budget which would allow for $1.5 trillion to be put on the books. This is a clear sign that Congress is OK'ing a giant tax cut for corporations (and perhaps high-income individuals), and this has made the pre-market this Friday plenty happy: the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures are all up at this hour. While there remains some hope for bipartisan support on a tax reform deal, the vote was 51 to 49 (Rand Paul of Kentucky being the one Republican voting against the measure), indicating very slight margin for error.