How high is up?

Today's Tids Issue 4,510

Insurance is for crashes:

Yahooooo! The S&P Reached an all-time record high yesterday. I don’t know about you, but that tends to make me a little jittery. It’s the old what goes up, must come down, thing. Yet the recent movement upward was powered by real life optimism for China deals, Brexit easing and better than expected earnings. But peaks, emotional or material, always have investors looking for defense mechanisms. A recent historical analyses of post peaks show investors typically moving into bonds. Stocks get sold. Market pricing is affected. If you think about it though, everything is expensive now from housing to oysters to football tickets. Maybe the markets are just keeping up with spending. So, I’m smiling at the high numbers, and liking real strengths in the economy, but I’m starting to look over my shoulder.

You know, in reality it is the little things, the irritants that gnaw away at citizen’s common sensibilities that bring down governments. Little government idiosyncrasies that annoy the hell out of just plain ole’, sometimes rational, folks like me. And today I noticed they changed the Medicare Part D sign up system, which used to be really, really easy, but now becomes an unnecessary burden.

It’s the old change for change sake to look different by people with too much free time on their hands.

I think we need to take another look at the so-called “Equal Time” laws. You know, the law that says if one political party gets on the air in TV or radio, the opposing party must get equal time. I’m thinking we should add Movies to the list that need fairness. Netflix for instance with the Obama’s as producers, could start snaking away from the center. If they were ever there. I have seen some recent efforts that are clearly one-sided politically, or certainly suspect -- and it isn’t Repub centric. H-Wood anti-conservative icons, say like Meryl would gladly take rolls to express personal opinions and support left sided agendas. Do I sound paranoid? No, I’m just reporting on what I see.

When the traditional clock manufacturer sold out to the digital company, it changed hands.

A lot of people are sitting quietly today waiting for tomorrow when Apple reports earnings. Will it be the keynote for the next cycle?

How do you find a small fund cap manager? You find a large fund cap  manager and wait.

The Question:

Quick! Frances or Francis – which is male and which is female. That is, if three still is a difference.

The Headlines:

--Markets Expected to Pullback Today After Yesterday’s Highs; US Businesses Slowing Down On Hiring; Revenue Is Choking Mainly Due To Higher Cost Of Goods From Tariffs; Pfizer Looks Strong in Earnings And Future Guidance; Average Housing Prices Rise For First Time In 16 Months, Unit Sales Expected To Be Weaker.

--Pelosi Give Repubs What They Want, A House Vote This Week To Formalize Impeachment.

--Biden Suggests He’d be A One Term President.

--US Military to Stand Guard Over Syrian Oilfields.

--Dem Operatives Sentenced In Kavanaugh “Doxing” Case.

--Judge Allows $250 Million Suit Against Wapo Brought By Covington High School Students To Move Forward.

--Exiting Katie Hill Offers Typical Political Excuses For Her Own Behavior.

--Officials At Getty Museum To Keep Priceless Art In Palce As Cal Fires Swirl Around Institution; Winds Calming At Kinkade Fire.

I’m not saying I’m concerned about the stock market, but Merrill Lynch has adjusted its investment portfolio: 50% cash, and 50% canned goods.

Whatever happened to, “If you can’t say something nice say nothing at all.”

One of my other pet peeves are these messages sent by internet services’ providers that say something is wrong and click here, when, to me, everything seems just perfect. I look at all helpful messages form internet land as possible spam, sales promotions or worse.

You know you’ve gone to the wrong stock broker, when you ask him to buy 100 shares of IBM, and he asks you how to spell it.

By the way, I complained to Medicare about the change I mentioned above, and now all of a sudden, I’m getting more superficial, impersonal email messages. They know my email address. Shoot me.

After this, I may go down to the corner and watch people read street maps, look around and scratch their heads. A large cruise ship, the 4,500 passenger Meraviglia, is in town.

Just incase you are interested, murders to date in Mexico have soared to 25,890, which is a 6x’s greater rate than the USA. And Mexico has among the least permissive gun laws of all nations. We tend to over react to gruesome anecdotes, statistics be dammed.

Speaking of ISIS, when I see images of the terrorist group, I think of masked Antifa members running violently through the streets.  

Ways to pay for “Medicare for All”: It is estimated that it would cost $3 trillion which is equal to the total yearly amount of USA revenue. You could tax all those making over $408,000 at a100% rate and get there. But of, course, the taxed would just stop working. You could institute a 42% sales or VAT tax, but consumers would just stop buying. There could be a 25% surtax on everybody which would pay for it, or the government could cut 80 % of all spending on everything except health care. Or, you could charge everybody $7,500 a year for health insurance, but would need subsidization for 50% of the people. In other words, Free isn’t cheap. (Note: These observations are based on Info from an author named Rick Newman.)

On a similar note, a group of hedge fund billionaires led by Paul Tudor Jones, Rob Citrone and Jeff Vinik say that the stock market would go down 25% the day Elizabeth Warren Got elected. I have been reporting this growing Wall Street resentment to her polices for over a year, And, it keeps on coming.

The Answer:

Of course, everybody knew that Frances was female and Francis was male’ Just remember “E” for Excellent and “I” for Insubordinate. I’m going for points.

I worked for a big Wall Street company as a kid in college, mainly in the back room, until promoted to getting coffee for Wall Street wizards of the day. But I looked at tickers regularly and felt the emotions of brokers in those Pre-Stock-Mass-Merchandising days. And we had emotional highs, like I remember clearly the shouts when US Steel hit 100! And the thought was we’d never see that again. But we don’t see much of US Steel any more, yet we have continually seen new highs that always seem at the moment to be the end of Wall Street’s ability to climb higher. But it wasn’t, hasn’t and most like won’t be. So, weather the storms. And don’t jump out of windows.

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.