Business

In late November, we reported on Elon Musk’s desperate attempt to boost market confidence with a shock and awe performance unveiling Tesla’s new semi-truck and roadster. While the event was a thriller, it appears the laws of physics may have finally caught up with Tesla’s stock - now in a bear-market from September highs.

Musk is undeniably the greatest snake oil salesman modern financial markets have ever seen, and that is why he is planning the next spectacular event before a further correction.

Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog,

The way the world economy is manipulated by world leaders is a little like a giant video game. The object of the game is to keep the world economy growing, without too many adverse consequences to particular members of the world economy. We represent this need for growth of the world economy as being similar to making a jet airplane fly at ever-higher altitudes.

In the latest installment of RealVision's interview series featuring Jim Grant, longtime publisher of Grant's Interest-Rate Observer, the newsletter publisher sits down with Alan Fournier, the billionaire founder of Pennant Capital, to discuss one of the most widely discussed topics across modern asset markets: Volatility - or rather, the systemic risks posed by not only the paucity of volatility in modern markets, but how risk parity and low-vol targeting strategies have created imbalances that could lead to massive dislocations should volatility spike.

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Market Review

What the “heck” was that?

This past week seemed to be the story of Christmas coming early. Earlier this week the markets surged higher on hopes that “Ole’ St. Tax Cuts” would soon be here. But that dream seemed to be short-lived on Friday, at least at the open, as General Mike Flynn seems to embody the “Grinch” trying to steal Christmas.

Authored by Tom Luongo,

The first rule of politics is feather your own nest.  President Trump’s tax cut proposal always had this in mind.

Congress has passed a bill which tinkers at the edges but leaves most of Trump’s core proposal intact.  It’s obvious to me that Trump has the political acumen of another brilliant U.S. politician, the loathsome Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Yeah, I’m not a fan of FDR.  But I do respect his political skill in the same way I respect the way sharks hunt their prey.