Who's buying the Trump Rally? You could probably guess

The 'Trump Rally' in the stock market is hitting multi-decade records.
This is from last week.

The stock market is having its best performance in the first month of a rookie president's term since the 1960s.
The S&P 500 has gone up 3.8% since Trump took office.
That's the biggest increase for a new Republican president since the blue chip index that eventually became the S&P 500 debuted in 1923, according to S&P DJ Indices.

And this is from yesterday.

The red-hot Dow closed at an all-time high yet again on Monday, its 12th consecutive record day.
That's only happened two other times in the 120-year history of the Dow. There has never been a 13-day streak of records, though that could change on Tuesday.

The euphoria of investors in a new presidency is something to behold. I've never seen this in my lifetime.
It begs the question, "who are these people?"
Bloomberg has an answer.

After years of snubbing the asset class in favor of fixed income, retail investors are showing pent-up demand for stocks amid an escalation in risk-taking and projections for economic growth since the November election.
From the $86 billion plowed into equity exchange-trade funds so far this year, Panigirtzoglou and team calculate that 2017 as a whole may see equity funds absorb a net $442 billion of new retail-driven money if the year-to-date pace is sustained. That would be almost six times larger than last year’s volume, according to JP Morgan.
On the other hand, institutional investors from risk-parity to mutual fund managers have decreased their exposure to the equities, the team concludes from assessing various active managers’ returns -- another sign that the flows to passive strategies are likely dominated by retail investors.

In other words, professionals are selling stocks while amateurs are buying them.
Normally that would be enough information, but this isn't normal times.
I can get more specific than that.

When it comes to confidence in the U.S. economy, the partisan divide is the widest ever on record. Democrats are expecting an outright recession, whereas Republicans are expecting the exact opposite–and getting ready to let the boom times roll.
The latest figures released by the University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers on Friday show sentiment among Republicans was 120.1, in line with expectations for robust economic growth, whereas it was only 55.5 for Democrats – a number predicting recession. The gap between the two is the widest on record, since the study started in 1945, according to Richard Curtin, who compiles the survey.

Since people who are "expecting an outright recession" don't normally buy lots of stocks when the market is at an all-time high, the answer for "Who's buying the Trump Rally?" is "Trump Fans".
It really is as simple as that. Which gives a whole new definition of "Dumb Money".

Let's not stop there, because stocks aren't the only thing hitting all-time highs.
Home prices are above the housing bubble peak price, with home sales at their highest levels since February 2007.
So who is buying these homes at nosebleed prices?
landlord.png

Last year, 37 percent of homes sold were acquired by buyers who didn’t live in them, according to tax-assessment data compiled in a new report published by Attom Data Solutions and ClearCapital.com Inc.
In the years following the foreclosure crisis, Wall Street drove a rise in the share of homes purchased by landlords, as private equity firms bought thousands of cheap homes. In 2012, institutional investors accounted for 7.8 percent of home sales, according to the report.
Rising home prices led big investors to curtail their purchases, and the share of homes acquired by institutional investors fell to 2.9 percent last year. But as Wall Street backed off, smaller investors picked up the slack, aided by tools developed to help big investors find, finance, and manage rental properties.

Once again, the professional investor is not buying, but the amateur is buying at all-time high prices.
Once again, normally that would be enough information, but this isn't normal times.
I can get more specific.
repubs.png

During the last week of October, when Hillary Clinton was ahead in the polls, Trulia commissioned surveys of 2,000 Americans. Respondents who identified themselves as Republicans said that 2017 would be worse than 2016 for selling a home, buying a home, getting a mortgage, or finding rental housing. Democrats thought that 2017 would be better in each of those categories. After Donald Trump’s surprise electoral college win, outlooks for Republican and Democratic respondents flipped—in every category.
“It’s really not very intuitive,”
said Ralph McLaughlin, chief economist at Trulia. The second survey, for instance, was conducted after mortgage rates spiked in response to the election results. “Even if your side wins, if mortgage rates go up, you might get pessimistic about your chances of buying a home.”
These are dramatic swings, and it’s tempting to attribute them to an emotional response following a result that caught most people by surprise.

dems.png
Since people who think it's a bad time to buy a house don't normally buy houses when prices are at an all-time high, the answer for "Who's buying these houses?" is "Trump Fans".
Again.

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TOP would absolutely love info like this - where politics meet markets on a consumer level.

But TOP only wants sycophants, so c99p gets this essay while TOP gets 3 dozen diaries about Trump's skin color and hair.

In related news

This is the only time that the Dow has climbed to new highs over three weeks while cyclical shares trailed defensive stocks, according to data compiled by Sundial Capital Research Inc. that goes back to 1926.
Meanwhile, demand for hedges is rising even as the CBOE Volatility Index sits about 25 percent below its five-year average. Large speculators have raised net positions in VIX futures from a record low, pushing them up in three of the past four weeks, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.
The positioning highlights investor caution at a key moment for equities under Trump, in which he’s expected to give details of his agenda. While optimism over tax cuts and infrastructure spending has contributed to a rally that has added more than $2 trillion to equity values, strategists including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Kostin are urging clients to buy protection against the “asymmetrical” risk in a market full of hazards. Among them is that lower taxes may not take effect until 2018, he wrote in a note Friday.

I'm thinking about shorting the market.

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jobu's picture

@gjohnsit Nice job as always.

Buy buy buy buy
Sell sell sell
How well you learn
To not discern
Who's foe and who is friend
We'll own them all in the end

Listing my house tomorrow...

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@jobu territory regarding it's value, but then again, we've been in a bubble for over a year now here in WA. 4 units in my building sold last year at really high prices and all within a week or so. I don't really want to sell yet but its been tempting with what some got for these places. Its maybe 1200 square feet, nice building but not brand new, built 1998, nothing fancy, and these things are going at over $500K. I feel for the people who bought them as I just don't see that value holding through another crash. I am just glad not to be under water and glad I did a 20 year fixed at a decent rate. Scary times watching that stock market too. And my finance guy says I should buy in now, uh no thanks.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Creosote.'s picture

@gjohnsit
shift IRA market funds to credit union IRAs? Store money in 'gift cards'?

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@Creosote.

And gift cards buy police protection in the form of not being arrested for having them and simply having them seized because they can do that. There is no protection but in sane law... too bad TPTB of what they like people to term 'the greatest democracy of the world' allow neither democracy nor sane law.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Ken in MN's picture

...and it will come, they'll blame it all on Obama...

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I want my two dollars!

@Ken in MN

Hey, Obama/Dems/their funders/TPTB set up for this. They should all bear their portions of the blame - although I expect that this would have anyway happened under the Clintons, assuming that the country/globe wouldn't have been nuclear-irradiated and global-dimmed into extinction by this point.

Goldman Sachs, et al, would be running the economy 6 feet under in either case, after all.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

be circled as the side effects of deregulation bite.

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gulfgal98's picture

@LaFeminista I believe a lot of this boom is fueled by anticipation of deregulation.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

always comes down.

Sooner or later, reality returns. And the stock market and real estate market parted company with reality long ago. It will be a hard landing. And with most families still trying to recover from the last recession, and younger folks unable to get their feet under themselves thanks to poor-paying jobs and crippling college debt -- topped of by a government of, by and for the wealthy -- it's going to get very ugly.

It's not a question of if, but when.

Time to buy another thousand shares of Industrial Torches & Pitchforks.

Nicely done, gjohnsit.

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"The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles. -- Bob Dylan"

CB's picture

We live in interesting times.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-26/stockman-after-march-15-everyth...

Then, Stockman drops this bomb and says:

“I think what people are missing is this date, March 15th 2017. That’s the day that this debt ceiling holiday that Obama and Boehner put together right before the last election in October of 2015. That holiday expires. The debt ceiling will freeze in at $20 trillion. It will then be law. It will be a hard stop. The Treasury will have roughly $200 billion in cash. We are burning cash at a $75 billion a month rate. By summer, they will be out of cash. Then we will be in the mother of all debt ceiling crises. Everything will grind to a halt. I think we will have a government shutdown. There will not be Obama Care repeal and replace. There will be no tax cut. There will be no infrastructure stimulus. There will be just one giant fiscal bloodbath over a debt ceiling that has to be increased and no one wants to vote for.”

[video:https://www.youtube.com/embed/7xgNncFHAng]

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MarilynW's picture

@CB
who will get the blame from Trump?

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To thine own self be true.

@CB

I dunno, I suspect that there will somehow be money for everything the billionaires, corporate interests and their political lackeys want, just nothing for the public.

And this could be where civil forces/emergency forces are dropped and (publicly paid?) private industry mercenaries brought in to maintain order in an emergency state demanding martial law. Just speculating, of course, just rather nervously.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

ignorant hicks from St. Lick that couldn't buy a stock unless they sold their mama's china? Not wealthy stock market players. And I thought Trump's policies of "cleaning the swamp" was pissing off the rich people, not enriching them?
Oh ya, Russia.

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orlbucfan's picture

Have you seen anything lately from bobswern, gjohnsit? Somehow, myself and the hubbyster are digging in with great caution in terms of the stock market and real estate. I look at this so-called "Recession" as what it actually is: a long-term Depression! Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

@orlbucfan
but I know Bonddad is back on the GOS.

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CB's picture

@gjohnsit
we hit the debt ceiling of $20 trillion? Most of Trump's grandiose plans will take a hard knock.

Another factor is how long can stock prices remain disconnected from economic reality? The markets are up but the economy is fairly flat comparatively. Sooner or later people are going to realize all these stocks they are buying are not backed up with enough assets or earnings to rationalize their cost. In many cases, their only value is in the hope there will be another sucker to buy them for 10% more than they paid.

Stock Market.jpg

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@CB
The problem is the size of the debt and deficits, combined with China and Japan no longer buying our debt.
If Trump gets ANYTHING like what he wants in tax cuts, the deficit will explode, and that will push up interest rates, which will
1) explode the deficit higher
2) cause interest rates to shoot up, which will
2a) cause defaults to shoot up
2b) crush retail
2c) possibly trigger a majorderivatives event

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@CB Legacy of Obama

In the age of Trump, America’s biggest foreign creditors are suddenly having second thoughts about financing the U.S. government.

In Japan, the largest holder of Treasuries, investors culled their stakes in December by the most in almost four years, the Ministry of Finance’s most recent figures show. What’s striking is the selling has persisted at a time when going abroad has rarely been so attractive. And it’s not just the Japanese. Across the world, foreigners are pulling back from U.S. debt like never before.

From Tokyo to Beijing and London, the consensus is clear: few overseas investors want to step into the $13.9 trillion U.S. Treasury market right now. Whether it’s the prospect of bigger deficits and more inflation under President Donald Trump or higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve, the world’s safest debt market seems less of a sure thing -- particularly after the upswing in yields since November. And then there is Trump’s penchant for saber rattling, which has made staying home that much easier.

debt_2.png

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earthling1's picture

@gjohnsit Any info?

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@orlbucfan He runs a business and was trying to get a message to DK/TOP because they have such a large base.

He is out there somewhere.

I can get in touch if someone wants to track him down.

A few years ago he ran a lot of articles from Sheldon Wolin's "Democracy Inc.: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism" That was published in 2008 and since then it has happened.'

Also, Bob put in a lot from Naked Capitalism. It is now much broader than finance and has a good following.

In some ways, there have been so many new voices that most of us are in overload with great things. When Bob was burning rubber on TOP/DK, that was before The Intercept, and before The Young Turks took off, and before Common Dreams had so much of its own content, and many other sources. There has been so much that has happened in the last few years and we have learned so much e.g., the Clintions F**** the system and now the oligarchs are in the drivers seat.

Kate Arnoff is writing it seems several articles per week and this one about how to organize to fight Trump - basically, the land & environment & start local and build the base.

THE CLIMATE MOVEMENT GOES TO WAR WITH TRUMP But to save the planet, we need to remake the Democratic Party

the dem party has folded and may or may not be revived

and there is twitter. I follow 22 people on twitter and that is at the edge

I recall when Glenn Greenwald started on Twitter I would report in Joananleon's place about each new 10K people following Glenn. And early on DK/TOP had about 125K when Glenn was at 60, 70, 80K. I just checked and TOP has 251K and Glenn has 850K. And the quality of who follows their tweets is at a different level.

Bob Swern will show up some time. He knows we are here. In the mean time, lots to do

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@DonMidwest

The saga of the past year has been epic. As we come up on one year of moral dislocation, one can see just how far everyone has traveled. Many have branched off into alternate pilgrimages and people display so much more confidence and resolve that they did before.

Inverted totalitarianism has always worked as a model, but from a distance, the US is starting to look like a failed state. There's a narrative out there…. From the corner of the eye, the US starts to look like the North Korea of the Western Hemisphere.

There's talk that H.R. 1205, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act is being reconstituted, to end US participation in the UN and any organizations affiliated with them.

If approved, the legislation would repeal the UN Participation Act of 1945 and shutter the US government’s mission to the outfit. It would also "terminate all membership by the United States in the United Nations, and in any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations." That specifically includes UNESCO along with the World Health Organization, the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and more. It would end all US involvement in all UN conventions and agreements, too. The legislation would end all funding to the UN, evict the UN from US soil, and strip UN officials and dignitaries of diplomatic immunity.

All this because the US is sharply criticized by Member Nations for continuing to deny Human Rights to US citizens. Naturally, a 2014 Gallup poll showed that a staggering 57 percent of Americans were opposed to the UN. Even among Democrats, half thought the UN was doing was doing a "bad job." Sigh.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Azazello's picture

but private prisons, for-profit K-12 chains and the armament industry look like smart plays to me.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello
deregulating Wall Street is seen as an unquestionable good thing.

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Azazello's picture

@gjohnsit
Yeah, we're hearing about "red tape" again, just like in the 1980s.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

@Azazello

Yeah, the economy, people and environment are just too 'burdensome' for corporate interests to actually be prevented from killing them all off for a little more profit now.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

I know someone's working on that to set us up for the next Big Short or worse.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Song of the lark's picture

After all both Venezuela and Zimbabwe stock markets boomed during their hyper inflations. Prolly just the blow off top to a nine year run. Caveat emptor. Many signs we are headed for a bonfire.

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orlbucfan's picture

I became a YUGE bobswern fan at TOP cos he explained the economic corporate robberies (TPP, NAFTA, etc.) in a language econ dummies like me could understand. I always watch for him even wandering back over there on occasion. Smile Appreciate it. Thanks again.

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

... In other words, professionals are selling stocks while amateurs are buying them. ...

... The share of homes acquired by institutional investors fell to 2.9 percent last year. But as Wall Street backed off, smaller investors picked up the slack, aided by tools developed to help big investors find, finance, and manage rental properties.

Once again, the professional investor is not buying, but the amateur is buying at all-time high prices. ...

Fee Fuck For fun, I smell the blood of a big crash come...

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0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.