Can you stop hyperfocusing on Trump for once this year? John Williams from the Fed is giving a talk right now saying that concerns about global growth and China are contributing to the market volatility, that the Fed policy is flexible, and that the US job growth and wage growth are both strong. He has said there have not been any effects from US tariffs yet. You should read his entire commentary later. I'll actually post it if I remember to do it and if I can actually find his full comments. Secondly, I don't know what percentage fault to attribute to Trump for the market rally since his presidency or the recent sell off. I don't know what percentage I can attribute the strength of the American or world economy to Trump either. It's a very small percentage in my eyes. I can tell you that the market tries to discount things very quickly and currently it is discounting potential economic weakness for the US due to the slowing global economy based on the fear of an inflexible Fed that would only push to hike rates without thought. I can tell you credit spreads are also having a major impact on the market with the high yield market getting blown up right now. These last two statements carry FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR more weight with the market movement than anything Trump has said or done. https://www.themacrotourist.com/posts/2018/12/21/beenhere/
The market has been doing well since it stopped doing horribly, which was a while ago. As long as credit is correctly allocated and priced upfront, speculators don't fraudulently drive up capital asset value, corporate profits will correlate to equity growth.
1 through 5: Trump resigning as President. I'm at the point that I just want him gone. He is an embarrassment, and I voted for W.
Well said, Buck, and I don't care if you voted for W., even if I've voted against him everytime his name was on a ballot in Texas. I care about sanity in government, something that doesn't exist in the trump regime come February, now that Secretary Mattis has resigned. Compared to trump and those surrounding him, George W's government was a model of sanity in Washington. That's how bad trump is.
Dude your 401K will be fine. Unless you plan to retire tomorrow I mostly pulled out a year ago in Jan - lucky timing. I will buy back in a bit now and keep buying back in a fixed amount every time the market drops 10%.
I gained 23% on my 401k - guess I just got lucky eh? Same stocks, same investments, nothing different to the previous 35 years and they went crazy. You go Donald!
Ahh, the ol' "I'm doing great so everything must be awesome" routine. You can be a conservative and admit that the economy in the near and even long term is set for impending disaster after disaster unless drastic spending cuts are made and Trump's idiotic trade policies are rolled back. In fact, you're not really a conservative if you can't admit as much - at least not a fiscal conservative. But go ahead and claim you are if it makes you feel better. We are heading into a recession that is going to be compounded by Trump's ridiculous trade policies. Luckily, his tax cuts may limit some of the fallout for many medium and small businesses who planned ahead, but I fear that many took the bullshit Trump and his flag carrying cronies have been saying about "all is well" to heart. Only time will tell. There is a reason Trump never became a billionaire, and it's because he's not as good at business as he thinks he is. Unfortunately for us all, it looks like he thinks he can just file for bankruptcy when his policies fail, like he did at countless businesses before... but that isn't how it works in the real world.
Asking as a member of the GOP (who thankfully didn't vote for Trump), can't you at least acknowledge that Trump makes it literally impossible to not be "hyper-focused" on Trump?
Do you see any asset class approaching 23%? 2017 maybe, but I doubt you are up 23% in 2018 and I'd guess your value is back to January levels. So let us in on your "brokers" investment strategy, because it couldn't be a diversified portfolio. Maybe he went 'all in' on naked shorts on Soybean futures so Trump's trade war did yield you a profit.
It could have been for 2017 as I got the report a couple months ago. I doubt there were any asset classes approaching 23% last year either. I eagerly await the next one as you can well imagine. Either way, you go Donald!
You need to look at your value as of now, and then take an historical look at 2008 and 1987. Markets do not like uncertainty, can you think of anything more "uncertain" than Trump running the Executive Branch by Tweet? Than a politicized FED? Than cancelling Trade Treaties? Markets like progress and innovation that promise escalating profit growth. Can you think of anything less innovative than Coal, rolled back standards, for mileage and clean air? How would markets react to impeachment? No one knows.
Except the concerns about global growth and China largely stem from tariffs. Basically, much of the market is self-inflicted and can be traced to Trump. He's created uncertainty through his non-stop tariff threads. His actual steel tariffs have caused price spikes in many goods and job losses in the auto and other sectors. The tax cuts last year did exactly what we predicted - it injected a bunch of money into an economy that didn't need it and didn't know what to do with it. That just increased buybacks and artificially inflated the market without creating much new growth or wage increases - all that money was just a big transfer of wealth from the government to the wealthy. That also pushed inflation concerns due to the increased deficit, which leads to the Fed having to raise rates, which then contributes to the market fears. This idea that the President or government policy doesn't really affects markets is nonsense. Trump has directly been involved in all of this.
You do realize you can check your 401k right now? I don’t know any 401k that doesn’t let you know in real time how much it’s worth. No offense but you sound really uninformed. Typical Trump supporter I guess.
