Wednesday, January 17, 2018

The Energy And Market Page, T+361 -- January 17, 2018

The Dow just hit an all-time intra-day high. Whoo-hoo! Stock market optimism highest in 32 years. On pace to close above 26,000 for the first time in history. [Later: the Dow closed 322 points higher than yesterday. It's very, very hard for me to get my mind around that number -- 322 points.]
  • NYSE new highs: 165
Apple: will add more than 20,000 jobs; will pour $350 billion into the US economy -- one reason -- the Trump tax bill. Apple will pay about $38 billion in taxes to the US ... again, for one reason -- the Trump tax bill. Steve Liesman (CNBC) was unimpressed with the 20,000 jobs over five years.  He noted that Apple had been adding 4,000 jobs/year in the recent past. This new announcement is simply same ol', same ol' to Steve.

401(k) plans: huge return.

US manufacturing: rose for the fourth consecutive month in December, 2017.

Who's really winning? The mom-and-pop Bakken millionaires. If you don't believe me, ask one of them.

Reality: I've always thought Michael Santoli, CNBC's Senior Markets Commentator, was one of the most negative, most wrong-thinking anchors on CNBC. After his comments yesterday when the market had that huge swing, my thoughts about him were confirmed. He said that the reason for the swing yesterday: the markets (i.e., investors and traders) are just too tired. LOL. Steve Liesman is a close second. Andrew Ross Sorkin? Don't even get me started.

In addition to that prescient comment, his thesis yesterday was this: the market is likely to "overshoot" ... "overshoot" what, I do not know. But the market will "overshoot" at some point, according to Santoli -- and he said that throughout the day. I've been out and about all day so I didn't watch much CNBC until late after and thus haven't seen him.

Irrational exuberance: the Federal Reserve can't wait to start raising rates. They will probably raise more quickly and more aggressively than we might think. It was one thing for the Trump rally to get to 25,000; it's another thing for the hyper-rally to head towards 30,000. 

No comments:

Post a Comment