Courtesy of Mish.
The market is pricing in a lot of “Everything is Awesome”. Reader Jason Leach, CFA, asks “Is all this awesomeness, real or fantasy? Has it been pulled forward?”
Pulling Awesome Forward
What follows is a guest post from Jason B. Leach of Fusion Point Capital. His title is Pulling Awesome Forward.
U.S. markets have “celebrated” the Trump election, with the S&P 500 rising ~8% after a quick ~4% drop pre-election (and much deeper drop in futures the night of the election). There are quite a number of themes, positive and negative, continuing into the new year from 2016. The “positives” – infrastructure spend, tax reform, healthcare reform, and deregulation – have built a relentless bid, or scared off sellers…for the time being.
The “negatives” – dollar strength, dollar scarcity, global debt bubble, Fed divergence, stress in European and Chinese banks, Yuan devaluation, rising populism in Europe (with French, Italian, German elections around the corner), low but rising probability of Euro-Exits, protectionist leanings (Smoot-Hawley tariffs contributed to a 66% decline in global trade from 1929-1934), and U.S. equity valuations at the third highest level ever (median stock on the S&P 500 at 98th percentile, and the all-time highest valuation for the index when including the enormous amount of corporate debt growth over the past decade) – are relegated to the dark recesses of pre-election…pre-light.
There are myriad estimates of what Trump’s policies could add to GDP and thus corporate earnings. If these policies are well thought out and passed quickly, no doubt there will be boosts. But, and there are several big “buts” here, with the current state of divisiveness, every issue is “third rail” and unless Republicans are willing to use the nuclear option (reconciliation where simple majority passes in the Senate) like a tactical weapon (i.e., repeatedly), the “positives” being pulled forward into today’s market pricing may take many more moons than anticipated. And, as detailed in iterations of Trillion Dollar Sam, these deep structural problems are decades in the making and will require more than outpatient Trump surgery in the first 100 days to rectify. 
