Markets dislikes uncertainty.
Stock Market Axiom
And the world is awash in just that.
The news is plain to see, the job of the socionomist (predictive social mood) is to point out how mood is affecting the markets.
Facebook/Meta was just fined $400M by EU regulators. It is cutting its workforce by 13%. The stock trades about one-third its value a year ago.
Amazon trades at 44% of its Fall 2021 high. It is about to report its first year ever of single digit revenue growth. Its operating margin is half the year ago figure. AMZN is laying off 17,000, about 5% of its total.
Venture capital firms lost big time holding stocks like Robinhood, now down 77%.
SPACs, firms raising money for no particular purpose, are scrambling to refund or adjust to the lack of alternatives.
At Walgreens, 3,000 of 9,000 stores are on reduced hours due to shoplifting. The firm is seeking to reverse revenue decline.
Slowing economic activity at Goldman may cost 8% of the workforce their jobs. And OMG, no more free coffee, now it is Seattle Best at $2.99 a cup, wow those guys are cracking the whip!
Politically Joe Biden finally discovers the border but won’t really do anything about it.
One should count the votes before calling a vote. Democrats never did that on their multi-trillion spending plan and finally settled for way less but a lot more for we taxpayers. Now Kevin McCarthy wants to be the Speaker, the person in charge of passing legislation. Hint, as Nancy Pelosi put it, here the vote is the coin of the realm. Except Kevin does not have the votes and is now surrendering what power he might have, nine speaker votes and counting…
The Energy Department finally admits that cancelling the Keystone Pipeline cost jobs and energy security. Team Biden is still calling Caracas and Riyadh but not Midland and Tulsa. This will lose, not establish, energy independence.
Oil prices remain in the low 70s. Natural gas prices have fallen with warmer than expected weather, good thing given the strangulation of supply by Team Biden.
I suspect both Biden and Trump have overestimated their respective political strength. Biden believes his election was an endorsement rather than what it was, a rejection of Trump. And Trump still claims foul, where is Melania when we need her? I doubt either will be a 2024 nominee.
The first three days of a month often set the tone for the month. So far, all three days closed down, and I don’t see much happening today either. Welcome to the Bear Market of 2023.
