The Zeitgeist – 4.18.2019

Every morning, we run The Narrative Machine on the past 24 hours worth of financial media to find the most on-narrative (i.e. interconnected and central) stories in financial media. It’s not a list of best articles or articles we think are most interesting … often far from it.

But for whatever reason these are articles that are representative of some sort of chord that has been struck in Narrative-world.

April 18, 2019 Narrative Map – US Equities

S&P 500 Faces Headwinds But May Avoid Profit Recession: Oxford Economics [IB Times]

The S&P 500 companies may escape a profit recession in 2019 as the resilience in the U.S. economy, easing trade tensions and an expected weakness in the U.S. dollar improve confidence, Lydia Boussour, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said.

TFW … a wall of worry is just too much work.

Remembering the start of CNBC, 30 years later [CNBC]

Is CNBC still relevant? Sure is. Let me tell you why: The baby boomers are in terrible shape. I mean financially. The oldest baby boomer is now 73, the youngest is 55. Half are already in retirement. And they need our help and the help of everyone in the financial journalism community.

Bob Pisani remembers!

Everyone writes LOL these days, even when they don’t actually make a sound. Not me. I laughed like a banshee when I read this.

CNBC “helps” the investment behavior of retirees in exactly the same way that Fox and CNN “help” their political behavior.

Coal in AOC’s stocking: GOP lawmaker withdraws invite to visit Kentucky mine [NBC News]

“GOP’s getting scared that up close, their constituents will realize I’m fighting harder for their healthcare than their own Reps,” she goaded them on Twitter.

AOC is the Bo Jackson of modern American politics. More raw ability and talent than any human I’ve ever seen. 2024 will be here before you know it.

These Are the Winners and Losers in the Apple-Qualcomm Settlement [Fortune]

I’m not making this up.

Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within [NY Times Magazine]

The C.F.P.B. was created to protect Americans from predatory lenders after the financial crisis. President Trump’s new chief of staff took it apart on his way to White House.

Two of my biggest and most successful thematic shorts in my hedge fund days were for-profit schools and pay-day lenders. I did all the work during the Bush years, then put the positions on in the Obama years. Pretty much the only shorts that worked from March 2009 on.

Both of these “industries”, and you can add for-profit prisons to the list, are pure parasites on the public body. Not only are their business models based on intentionally screwing as many poor people as they possibly can, but they exist profitably ONLY because federal laws allow them to exist profitably. When those laws shift (or more typically, the enforcement and interpretation of those laws shift) these companies work (or don’t).

I always tried to keep my personal feelings and emotions out of the investments I made, long and short. But I couldn’t hide my satisfaction from seeing these companies get crushed then, and it bums me the hell out that they are resurgent under the Insane Clown Posse administration.

Stock futures edge higher on robust China data; chipmakers rise [Reuters]

6 months?? I’m already there!

Good thing my office is on the ground floor.