Succinct Summation of Week’s Events for 9.27.19 (plus the latest from Stansberry)

Below please find the usual summation for the week courtesy of Barry Ritholz's Big Picture blog.  The positive is that with impeachment now here, we are are closer now to resolving that particular market uncertainty.  There was good news on a number of other fronts including GDP, home sales, durable goods orders, and wholesale inventories.  The big negative is that corporate profits, though still rising, rose only slightly compared to the last increase. 


The bonus this Sunday is a little different.  I try to avoid editorializing, instead just summarizing the reports I read.  But since being introduced to Mr. Porter Stansberry at the FastTrack course in 2010, he has made a number of predictions about the stock market and economy collapsing and not a single one has come true.  It is a wonder to me why people listen to him at all.  Now for the latest -- below you will see he is predicting that some woman Democrat who has not yet declared will be coming out of the woodwork, winning the nomination and, if she becomes President, will become a dictator and destroy our economy and our freedoms. 

This I am bookmarking just so I have proof next summer at convention time that none of this is remotely true.  It has always been a source of astonishment to me that investors, particularly those in the AAII, cannot separate their strategies from their politics.  Politics should never even enter into these things.  We cannot control what happens in Washington and therefore the prudent course of action is to have a plan of action whatever direction things take.  Instead, too many investors blame the politicians for why they can't make money.  This is nonsense.  It takes no skill to make money when everything is going the way we want.  A real investor knows how to make money in the face of changing circumstances, even when they are unfavorable, especially when they are unfavorable.  Even at the IBD meeting last week, the speaker went on and on about how the big bad Democrats were pushing us toward recession.  And not just any recession, but a calamity that will make 1929 look like chicken feed.  Please, can we confine our discussions to strategies for making money and leave the politics at the door?  You cannot control politics.  You can control how you make your buy and sell decisions. 

Anyway, when I received this email today, it triggered all this frustration I've had since the beginning not only with the AAII, but with Investors Business Daily and even The Wall Street Journal.  One of the reasons I read The Big Picture is that Ritholz seems to have an ability to stay objective about these things, being an equal opportunity offender and flatterer to both sides. 

So I'm sharing the email below and betting that none of this fear mongering comes true.  That's my editorial.  Hope everyone stayed relatively dry this weekend. 

Succinct Summation of Week’s Events for 9.27.19

September 27, 2019 4:00pm by Barry Ritholtz

Succinct Summations for the week ending September 27th, 2019

Positives:

1. Impeachment is finally here, and markets are n0w that much closer to resolving that uncertainty . . .
2. GDP rose 2.0% according to the third estimate for Q2.
3. New home sales rose to an annual rate of 713k in August, above previous 666k.
4. Pending home sales rose 1.6% m/o/m, above the expected increase of 0.6%.
5. New orders for durable goods rose 0.2% m/o/m, above the previous decrease of 1.2%.
6. Wholesale inventories rose 0.4% w/o/w, above the previous increase of 0.2%.
7. FHFA House Price Index rose 0.4% m/o/m, above the expected increase of 0.2%.
8. PMI Composite came in at 51.0 for September, within the range of expectations.

Negatives:

1. IPOs continue to struggle, as WeWork gets postponed and Peleton comes out below IPO price.
2. Same store sales rose 5.2% w/o/w, decelerating from the previous increase of 5.4%.
3. Corporate profits rose 0.3%, below the previous increase of 1.7%.
4. Retail inventories remain unchanged after the previous increase of 0.8%.
5. Consumer spending rose 0.1% in August, below the previous increase of 0.5%.
6. Consumer confidence fell from 135.1 to 125.1 m/o/m, below the expected 133.0.
7. Jobless claims rose 3k w/o/w from 210k to 213k.
8. Home mortgage app fell 3.0% w/o/w after the previous increase of 6.0%

Income Signals (incomesignals@mailplus134.com)

Dear Reader,
You'll never believe who one expert believes will become President in 2020:
It's not Hillary... Elizabeth Warren... A.O.C. or even Michelle Obama.
It's someone even worse.
And if she wins, she'll take away our freedoms and destroy our economy.
So if you were put off by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign... or couldn't believe how popular Bernie Sanders' socialist platform was - just wait.
This 2020 candidate will "out-liberal" anything you've ever seen.
A new, incredibly powerful hidden force will practically guarantee that she wins.
And the steps she'll take during her first 100 days in office will send our nation into one of the worst financial crises in history... creating a nightmare for Baby Boomers.
Get the full story right here.
Sincerely,
Adam Wiederman
Senior Researcher, Stansberry Research
P.S. We've identified 3 initiatives that have already become the biggest talking point of the next election. Find out why this is a problem here...