At least we, probably, know where the finish line is. Spokesfolk for the Trump administration have said that President Donald Trump will name his nominee to head the Federal Reserve before he heads off to Asia on November 3. But beyond that speculation is running wild.Â
For 2017 though the end of September, the FANG stocks–Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google (Alphabet)–and friends such as Apple and Microsoft have contributed 29% of gains in developed economy stock markets. Pretty hefty concentration, you say. But, if your looking for a market really dominated by elephants shift your gaze to emerging markets.
Yesterday the Senate approved a budget plan that would allow Republicans to pass a tax cut plan without any votes from Democrats (thus preventing a Democratic filibuster.) The budget plan would leave room for a $1.5 trillion tax cut. The markets have been waiting for some progress on the tax cuts and this is a key first concrete legislative step
In some markets deciding how much money you’re going to put into any asset is as hard as picking the assets themselves. In some markets, I’d argue, it’s even harder. Unfortunately, the current market is one of those markets. The reliable guide for allocation assets in a portfolio, history, isn’t much help right now. That’s why, when it comes to deciding on the asset allocations for my new Perfect 5 ETF Active Passive Portfolio, I’m going to use a somewhat more active approach
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. Today’s items include this one: “10:40 a.m.: Alphabet’s (GOOG) investment arm, CapitalG, has led a $1 billion round of investment in Lyft. The new round values Lyft at $11 billion. The funding is significant since Alphabet has been a big supporter of Uber and this investment suggests that Alphabet’s Waymo autonomous vehicle unit will work more closely with Lyft.”
Apparently it’s one thing for foreigners, such as Fitch Ratings or Moody’s Investors Service, to warn of an impending debt crisis in China. Chinese financial markets have by and large shrugged off such warnings. But it’s another thing entirely when the Governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, issues a very similar warning.
In my daily trawling through the market I come upon lots of tidbits of knowledge that I think are important to investors but that don’t justify a full post. I’ve decided to start compiling these notes here each day in a kind of running mini blog that I’m calling Notes You Need. I launched this new feature on JubakAM.com on December 1. It runs only on JAM and won’t appear anywhere else. The blog includes items such as this from today: “11:20 a.m.: NAFTA worries take a  bite out of Mexican peso with the currency down 7% against the dollar in the last month. At 19 pesos to the dollar, the currency is still above the 21 pesos to the dollar level it sunk to at the beginning of the year. Still this isn’t goo background as the country heads into a presidential election scheduled for July 1, 2018.”
Who says “Almost” only counts in horseshoes? IBM (IBM) announced a 0.4% year over year decline in third-quarter revenue –making it 22 straight quarters of declining revenue–but the 0.4% drop is the closest that IBM has come to revenue growth in more than five years. And the company projected that revenue would actually grow year over year in the fourth quarter
Wall Street–and especially JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon–may hate the crypto currency bitcoin. Dimon has promised to stop talking about bitcoin but he just can’t seem to help himself. Bitcoin is a “fraud” and people who buy Bitcoin are “stupid.” But that isn’t stopping Wall Street and big tech giants rom buying whole companies working on blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin
