General Discussion

I thought the market / economy would have turned down (not crashed) by now, too. Timing the market (getting in or out or going short) is impossible with any precision. However, one can reduce risk. Even though the market is up, I'm glad I got out in January, glad purely for sleeping well at nights. It may even go up further, but I think the risk of downside is much greater.

Key factor in short: economic damage is being ameliorated and spread out over time so it is not dramatic, but I think it is accumulating.

tRumponomics is not the only factor, but even considering it alone, it seems the tariff tax effects are smeared out and not biting in one chomp. People and companies "front ran" most of the tariffs by buying and shipping ASAP. Some effects of tariffs were absorbed: consumers paying about 80% and companies about 20%. But front-run inventory is petering out. Christmas shelves are going to be a bit bare.

On the job front, the labour market was more resilient than we all expected. That is because hiring, firing, and quitting all dropped dramatically. Many employees are staying in place. Labour is in short supply but employers are not doing much hiring because of fear they may have to fire before long.

AI is having an effect on boosting productivity and the capital expenditures (capex) on data centres and military equipment (selling to Ukraine's allies) is booming. I think it will be or is being overdone and there will be a pullback. There are effective uses of AI at this level but not as great as corporations hope. The next wave of AI (maybe in five to fifteen years) will be much more mind-blowing than current AI.

Beware of cynicism. Many people are so cynical that they become blind to reality by falling into confirmation bias. They see one example of law-breaking and they rush to post "They are all bad". Yes, law-breaking and manipulation occur, but it is the exception, not the rule.

There is money to be made in any market, even by the retail (non-institutional) investor. So manipulation can occur high, low, or in between. Billionaires do not "plan to keep stocks high". They have employees who are adept at finding value when stocks are low and selling over-valued stocks. One of the signs of a teetering market is when insiders and powerful money are selling stocks while retail investors are buying. But billionaires have no special insight on timing markets beyond what can be found in books and commentary (most of both are garbage).

The thing about market timing is that if you can gain 70% of a market or stock swing up and avoid 70% of a market swing going down, you will outperform the market even though you miss the tops and bottoms by significant margins. You might get out 15% early (or late) or get back in 15% early or late.