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WEEKEND THOUGHTS

—By Gary Kaltbaum  October 30, 2017—
—Random stuff and then the markets.— 

—Wednesday, November 15 is the 14th annual (maybe 15th) Kaltbaum family Blessing’s Banquet. Every year, we sponsor a Thanksgiving dinner for about 400 youth from the Boys and Girl’s Clubs of Central Florida. Most would not have Thanksgiving dinner if not for this night. Volunteers show up from the likes of Universal, Disney, Tupperware and many other great companies around Central Florida. We have magicians, games and characters from Universal (I love Scooby Doo)The youth are the guests. We are the servers. If you would like to volunteer, email me at gkaltbaum@kaltbaum.net. We would love to see you. Remember,at the holiday season or just any time, consider doing something for someone you need absolutely nothing from.—

—Tax reform:—

—Get your hands off the 401k. The 401k was started in 1978 and since, almost $6 trillion has been built up in it. Over 50 million people and 500,000 companies are involved. So if you want to piss off a lot of people, go ahead. Screw with it.— 

—Speaking of tax reform, DO NOT RAISE ANYONE’S TAXES. You hear that. We do not have a tax problem. We have a government spending problem. Do not be snowed into the lie about things being paid for. Did you hear any of the socialists complain about “how can we afford” when Obama decided to go into hock about $9 trillion under his two terms? Lower the spending but unfortunately, no one and we mean no one has the grapefruits to stop this runaway freight train.—

—The last time I saw the media frothing at the mouth like this was when they thought Karl Rove was going to be indicted for something. I still remember the day Rove was not indicted. It was like the media had a funeral that day. This is going to be quite the interesting week in Washington land! I don’t care what party it is. If you did the crime, you need to pay the piper…but just my opinion. This whole episode smells from both sides!—
—It does not matter who the president picks to head the Fed. It will be just more of the same. Easy and easier money…and if we get any sort of bearish market or any sort of downturn, I will guarantee you, they start printing again.—- 
—Is this 1999 all over again? This being the question I get the most. Answer: NO! The only 1999ish stuff going on is this bitcoin stuff. In 1999, companies would add .com to their name and double. In 1999, anything that breathed doubled, and then doubled again. In 1999, we had the end of the grand 18 year super-cycle culminating in that climactic move. What we are seeing now is not even close. Yes, valuations are in the higher end of historic range. Yes, the easy money pouring out of every central bank is gargantuan. But price is not even close. AMAZON had a gargantuan move but sales were up 34%. Yes, earnings guidance headed south all quarter and then the beat but earnings are going to re-accelerate again. GOOGLE had a big move. Earnings were up 32%, sales up 24%. SEMICONDUCTOR stocks keep soaring but so are earnings and sales. Leave no doubt we are way overdue for some ugly, but there is meat on the bone in many of these category killer companies.—
—The market continues to act well. The only big complaint we have is sentiment off the charts bullish…which gets us closer to some give back. Also, take away the fireworks in the NASDAQ-types this week and internals actually deteriorated. Fewer and fewer stocks are working. And amazingly, the new low list actually picked up on the week.—
—But plenty working and notwithstanding a market top soon, we had breakaway gaps to the upside on the biggest of big in GOOGLE and AMAZON and also had gaps in INTEL and MICROSOFT. Breakaway gaps are usually very bullish if the markets just hold up. If they continue up, the NASDAQ/NDX continue to go up as they have huge influence on the indices. Next up will be APPLE, FACEBOOK and PRICELINE.—
—Cannot wait for TV and radio this week. Going to be lots to talk about.—