I think we all hoped that once the election was over, we could go back to our normal lives without the incessant parade of campaign news.
No such luck.
Investors need a way to sequester the noisy news flow out of the White House. It is too easy to let the relentless and disturbing headlines throw off long-term financial plans. Investors must read the news, but not let it interfere with thinking clearly.
I totally agree with Barry here, however, in today's age of multimedia, the headlines are hard to ignore. It seems like everywhere that you turn, it is a barrage of negative news about the Trump administration. Prior to the election season, you seldom heard people discuss politics on Facebook, but today it is no longer a safe haven. And don't even think about visiting Twitter. I have distanced myself from it for much of the year and today decided to look at some of the tweets. It is just a deluge of craziness about this Comey memo — from both sides of the aisle. Whether you think the president may resign or if you think it is fake news depends on your politics, which we aren't here to argue about. What we have to figure out is the impact on our clients' portfolios.
With all this political bickering, we instead look at statistics and numbers which don't have any affiliation. In terms of corporate profits, they are extremely healthy. The first quarter saw 13% earnings growth and analysts are cautiously raising revenue and earnings numbers for all of 2017. The global economy is also improving even in Europe and Japan. This is allowing the Fed to raise interest rates without any negative ramifications to the financial markets. We weren't counting on any policy action on tax reform this year and it remains to be seen what will happen in 2018. Remember to tune out the noise and focus on the numbers.
“Donald Trump” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
