{"id":46845,"date":"2019-06-04T09:03:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T13:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=46845"},"modified":"2019-06-04T09:03:53","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T13:03:53","slug":"reasons-to-get-thoroughly-depressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=46845","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to get thoroughly depressed."},"content":{"rendered":"

You could easily get depressed.<\/p>\n

Washington has swallowed a powerful anti-business pill.<\/p>\n

Add to our never-ending China Trade War and a Mexico Immigration Tariff War and now everyone and their uncle \u2013 regulators, Justice, the \u00a0FTC and Congress \u2013 is lining up our most successful giant tech companies in their \u201canti-competitive\u201d sights.<\/p>\n

No one has any idea what ills companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google have foisted on the American public. Nor how long the insane \u201cinvestigations\u201d will last. Washington will enjoy fiddling and their TV time, while we burn.<\/p>\n

The upshot? Tech stocks — like FANG — are dead for now, and maybe for a long, long time.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s appeal was he understood business, he was business-friendly, etc. he was a contrast to the career Washington politicians who couldn\u2019t organize a queue for an outhouse. Or worse, didn’t understand why we needed outhouses.I’m guessing their sh”t stays inside them. Which gives new meaning to “full of sh*t.”<\/p>\n

The old \u201cjoke\u201d was that Washington was eight square miles surrounded by reality.<\/p>\n

This morning it\u2019s no longer funny.<\/p>\n

There’s talk of recession, since that\u2019s where tariff wars usually lead.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to fathom the insanity of the 5% tariff \u00a0on Mexico starting next Monday on June 10 (my birthday no less). Mexico is our biggest trading partner. All manner of American manufacturers ship their products back and forth across the Mexican border — our car companies are the largest. Will we hit them with a tariff every time their quarter products, their half products, and their full products pass over the border? Can you imagine the accounting nightmare? Can you imagine the delays at the border?<\/p>\n

Worse, what is Mexico meant to do about the flow of Guatemalans and Hondurans escaping violence at home, trying for some peaceful life in the United States? Shoot them? Close their borders also? If the U.S. can\u2019t handle its refugees, so Mexico can?<\/p>\n

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An awful thought: If the Mexican tariffs hurt Mexican business — which they will — there’ll be more Mexicans out of work and rushing our borders. They used to call this an Unforeseen Consequence.<\/em> Also called being hoisted on your own petard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s open season on businesses. This morning\u2019s news:<\/p>\n

General Electric(GE) , Phillips (PHG), and Germany’s Siemens are being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly bribing Chinese officials to sell medical equipment, Reuters has reported.<\/p>\n

The companies allegedly used local middlemen to negotiate bribes with Chinese hospital and government officials.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile stocks are not<\/strong> cheap. P\/E on the S&P 500 is 17.<\/p>\n

Moreover, buying \u201ccheap\u201d is not working.<\/p>\n

Brilliant Harry (that’s me) puts in a ridiculously low limit buy order for Facebook at $175.<\/p>\n

It fills.<\/p>\n

And then Facebook promptly falls to $164.15 — its close last night.<\/p>\n

Great way to achieve a small fortune. Start with a large one.<\/p>\n

CDs are paying 2.40% plus. Which may actually be a good rate.. There’s talk of a rate cut — to what? Nothing? Money is free! Whoopee.<\/p>\n

This morning the Chinese said they might be able to do a trade deal — if the U.S. jumped through a million impossible hoops. And the Mexicans have some ideas about avoiding Trump’s escalating tariffs.<\/p>\n

Sell In May and Go Away.<\/p>\n

Invest in your own business. Start a new business. Go walk in a national park.<\/p>\n

Become a birder.<\/p>\n

My friends are birders<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

They’ll go anywhere and everywhere to photograph birds.<\/p>\n

They won’t rest until they’ve seen every bird in the entire world.<\/p>\n

This image of a mutation in a south-western red-tailed black cockatoo was captured by Rob McLean in Bunbury, Western Australia.<\/p>\n

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My favorite Australian bird is the Laughing Kookaburra, because… well… it laughs.<\/p>\n

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Listen here.\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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Harry Newton, is focusing on his down-the-line backhand. More progress there than in his miserable stock portfolio. I’ll be more sanguine tomorrow. I hear we’re in for a little bounce today. It looks like the “communist” Chinese understand more about capitalism than our capitalist Washington politicians do. Go figure.<\/p>\n