Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers, says that while the stock market has been climbing the wall of worry, the one thing overcoming many of those worries has been that government policy is pro-business and pro-market. As a result, he doesn't expect the stock market to have a down year while President Trump is in office, despite real economic concerns that are worrisome but not having much current impact. He discusses Friday's jobs numbers, the current level of inflation and much more in a wide-ranging Big Interview.
In "The Week That Is," Vijay Marolia, chief investment officer at Regal Point Capital, discusses whether gold's recent rebound will get it all the way back to recent record levels, whether value's domination of growth this year is a sign of long-term market weakness — since value typically dominates only when markets are troubled — and celebrates the 91st birthday of Social Security by noting that he thinks investors with the means to not live off payments shouldn't follow conventional wisdom and wait to collect, preferring instead for them to take the money and reinvest it in the market, to further enhance growth of their long-term retirement portfolio.
David Trainer, president at New Constructs, puts companies that failed his firm's "core earnings leaders" test in The Danger Zone, noting that businesses with higher core earnigns than generally-accepted accounting earnings tend to be more profitable than the market realizes, which means that companies which fail to meet core-earnings tests may be headed for trouble, as they will be less profitable than expected. He cites NXP Semiconductors as an example of a stock that has become grossly overvalued because the market isn't looking at its true earnings picture.