And the beat goes on. I know stocks must be close to a pause because one of my market buddies asked me if stocks will ever go down again. Of course, he was kidding, but he and I ask each other idiotic questions from time to time during very strong trends. Stocks remain strong. That’s inarguable.
Index leadership is excellent. Same for sector leadership. Sure, the banks could step up a little more and they probably will when bond yields go up for more than a few days. Junk bonds are at all-time highs as is the NYSE A/D Line. Gold reversed lower on Tuesday so this could be the real test for the bulls to put up an important fight.
This morning the government revised Q2 GDP to +4.2% from 4.1% which doesn’t mean much except that Q2 was very nice, while consumer confidence is about as high as it ever gets. People feel good about the economy and they should, for now.Q3 won’t be so easy and my recession watch begins a year from now through the 2020 election.
As I am typing this, I am arguing with someone on Facebook about how good the economy is. Besides clearly hating Trump, his feeling is that the economy is not so strong because of the income equality gap and the economy could collapse if Trump’s supposed legal troubles increase.
I flat out dismiss this. It’s pure nonsense.
If Trump left tomorrow, what economic policy would change? MAYBE the tariffs would slowly go away which would be an economic boost not hindrance. Tax reform and reduced regulations wouldn’t change at all. The country is way too concerned with give credit or blame to the person residing in the White House. Long-time readers know that I prefer to say things like the president presided over a recession rather than caused a recession. One person can only do so much.
Anyway, we have record highs in stocks, record economic output (GDP), record corporate profits, etc. No matter which side of the aisle you sit on, things are pretty darn good right now, of course, completely ignoring our national debt.
