STRONG!
That is what every single President since Andrew Johnson has said in their State of the Union message and, tonight, it's very likely that President Trump will break with that tradition because, for the past year, he has talked about nothing but America being in crisis (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary), so it would be difficult for him to now turn around and tell Congress how great things are.
That will make this an interesting experiment as we will see how the markets react to what may be a doom and gloom speech while stocks are testing their all-time highs. We will be pressing our hedges – just in case!
One hedge that's working well already are the Oil (/CL) Futures Shorts from last week's Live Trading Webinar and you are very welcome, non-Members as we even published that one for you on Thursday Morning and now we're up $2,270 less than a week later – a nice way to finish the month. Don't forget not to subscribe so you can continue to miss opportunities like these!
Speaking of fantastic FREE trades we gave out last week. Goldman Sachs (GS) decided I was right last Wednesday and downgraded Tesla (TSLA) to sell for all the same reasons I laid out for you in Wednesday Morning's post. Our trade idea for shorting Tesla into earnings was:
That spread was net $2,163 on Wednesday morning and now, as of yesterday's close:
Now net $11,588 so that's up $9,425 (435%) in 6 days so, once again, you are welcome. This is why you should not subscribe to Philstockworld, the taxes you have to pay on gains are so annoying! We've lost interest in TSLA and have moved on, this trade has a $12,500 potential so it's essentially over – we're doing another Live Trading Webinar tomorrow at 1pm, EST – tune in then for more trade ideas.
Meanwhile, Trump better hurry up and create some jobs because Wendy's (WEN) took a big step in destroying them yesterday by announcing a rollout of 1,000 self-ordering kiosks aimed at eliminating 31 hours of labor per week – or about one job per 6,000 Wendy's locations but what about the other 300,000 fast food operators (MCD alone is 30,000)? How soon before they begin replacing humans with machines?
It's not the immigrants who are stealing our jobs – it's the robots yet the Administration is ENCOURAGING this behavior in Corporations and will in fact be REWARDING them for making investments in technology that will eliminate tens of millions of jobs over the next 8 years of Trump. I'm not anti-technology but you have to deal with the labor crisis that technology is creating or this country will be needing a New Deal in very short order!
Bill Gates and Benoit Hamon are calling for a "robot tax" but I agree with Yanis Varoufakis, who is trying to keep people focused on the need for a Universal Basic Income financed through wealth taxes on Top 1% people and Corporations. As Yanis says:
To the extent that automation improves productivity and corporate profitability, the whole of society would begin to share the benefits. No new tax, no complications in the tax code, and no effect on the existing funding of the welfare state. Indeed, as higher profits and their automatic redistribution via the UBD boosted incomes, more funds would become available for the welfare state. Coupled with stronger labor rights and a decent living wage, the ideal of shared prosperity would receive a new lease on life.
The first two industrial revolutions were built on machines produced by great inventors in glorified barns and bought by cunning entrepreneurs who demanded property rights over the income stream “their” machines generated. Today’s technological revolution is marked by the increasing socialization of the production of capital. A practical response would be to socialize the property rights over the large income streams capital is now generating.
If we don't start rethinking the distribution of labor and capital now, the system will fall apart entirely in the not-too-distant future. Sadly, we could not have picked a worse possible Government to steer us through this next Industrial Revolution or, if you are in the Top 1% and own the machines – you could not have backed a better Government to protect your growing pie of wealth.
