Weekend Reading: Impeachment Risk

Yesterday, the President stated:

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor. Because without this thinking, you would see, you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.”  

It is an interesting statement because there has been little to seemingly deter the bullish momentum of the market. Trade wars, tariffs, geopolitical stresses, a stronger dollar, and tighter monetary policy have all been quickly dismissed in exchange for hopes that corporate earnings and profitability will continue to accelerate into the future.

Even as I write this note this morning, the market is opening higher in the attempt to push the S&P 500 to “all-time”highs despite the fact the recent rally over the past week was attributed to “trade resolutions” with China which completely fell apart overnight.

“When reports emerged last week of a low-level Chinese delegation coming to meet with members of the Treasury department ahead of what the WSJ described would be a November trade summit in the US, stocks spiked and yields ran up (they have since tumbled with the 2s10s yield curve collapsing to just 20 basis points) on hopes that the long-running trade feud between the US and China may finally be coming to an end.

The skeptics were right because, after the conclusion on Thursday of the second day of the closely watched trade talks between the U.S. and China, there was ‘no major progress’ according to Bloomberg, with the stage once again set for further escalation of the trade war between the US and China.”

As you know, I was one of those skeptics.

Despite the headline rhetoric, the drive of the market is simply the momentum chase or more commonly known as the “Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO).” The momentum push is historically the last stage of a bull market cycle and is very difficult to stop. It is at this point in the cycle where “everything is as good as it can get,” literally. Confidence is at a peak, earnings and profitability are expanding and economic data is optimistic. Such provides the support to discount overvaluation and investment related risk.