Calm before the storm?

Next Friday we will have a new president, one like we’ve never seen before. I’ve spent nearly every week since the election talking about what may or may not happen and most importantly what the stock market is pricing in. (We summarized all of this on our What Really Matters Podcast this weekend.) At this point there is really nothing else anyone should be focusing on (although the Dow 20,000 watch may distract us a bit). Economic growth is accelerating, although the pace of job creation slowed the past few months. Inflation has picked up as well. At the same time the market remains overvalued and at levels only experienced during past market bubbles.

I’ll keep you posted if anything important pops up this week.

Friday, January 13 Update

The above GIF is how I picture investors that have been betting on an easy path in 2017 after president-elect Donald Trump’s first press conference on Wednesday. We got a glimpse of the candidate Trump I’ve warned may appear. He hip-checked investors with his talk on protectionism & heavy-handed government intervention when it comes to the location of companies’ operations & drug prices. There was little talk about tax cuts or infrastructure spending.

All that can change, but it is a bit of a warning that there is no such thing as “open ice” when it comes to investing. The fall for those not paying attention could be quite painful.