Welcome Stockaholics to the trading week of September 25th! Tax plan could mean good things for stocks as third quarter ends with surprising strength Tax cuts are likely to be the hot topic in the week ahead as the tax plan worked up by the Trump administration and Republican congressional leaders is released Wednesday. Stocks have scored solid gains for the third quarter so far, and the tax plan could add some momentum as the quarter winds down. Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks, and there are about a dozen speaking events, but traders expect the focus to swing to fiscal policymakers. The much-anticipated tax plan crafted by the Trump administration and Republican congressional leadership is expected to be unveiled Wednesday, and that could provide positive momentum for stocks in the final week of the quarter. Stocks are heading into the final days of the third quarter with solid gains and have avoided the correction expected by many strategists in August and September. The S&P 500, flat in the past week at 2,502, is up 3.3 percent for the quarter so far. The Dow, up fractionally in the past week to 22,349, is up more than 4.6 percent for the quarter. The Nasdaq was down about 0.3 percent for the week but up 4.7 percent for the quarter. While the market indices are near record highs, the Russell 2000, which had been lagging, was the only one to end the past week at a fresh high. "Any sort of good news for pushing Trump's agenda forward, considering nothing is getting done on the economic side, would be a big deal," said George Goncalves, the head of fixed income strategy at Nomura. "It might rekindle some of the Trumponomics fervor we had in the beginning of the year." While there are no details yet, the tax plan is expected to cut corporate taxes to the low 20s percent from a current 35 percent rate, and allow for repatriation of foreign profits by multinational companies. It is also expected to include a proposal for a territorial tax base, so companies are no longer encouraged to keep taxes offshore due to higher U.S. taxes. Dovish Fed signal and tax cuts could boost stocks higher: Aviva Investors' Charles Diebel 7:11 AM ET Wed, 20 Sept 2017 | 05:10 Individual tax rates are also expected to be cut, with the focus on the middle class. But the tax bill must still make it through Congress, and that may not be an easy process, as efforts to pass a new health-care bill have shown. The fate of that effort was unclear late Friday when Sen. John McCain said he would not vote in favor of the Republican bill and that he hopes to work with Democrats on a bipartisan plan. "While Congress has shown reticence to pass any bills, there's more support for tax cuts than there is for health care. Details around the edges are going to be that it comes out and saves $1.5 trillion over 10 years and will not be revenue neutral and it doesn't take away popular deductions," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities. "The market is going to see for the first time if this new administration can get an agenda item accomplished." Goncalves said the tax announcement should be positive but warned that if bond yields run up too much or too quickly on the tax news, that could stall out an equities rally. Treasury yields in the past week were higher, after the Federal Reserve Wednesday announced that it would buy fewer Treasury and mortgage securities and gradually increase that amount, in an effort to shrink its $4.5 trillion balance sheet. The Fed also retained its near-term forecast for another interest rate hike this year and three more next year, boosting market expectations for a December rate hike well above 60 percent. Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who briefed media after the Fed meeting, speaks again on Tuesday as the keynote luncheon speaker at the National Association of Business Economists meeting. "We're shifting the focus away from the monetary policy side of things to fiscal policy. Though Yellen will be important, it most likely will be more about any kind of good news on getting details on tax reform," Goncalves said. He said he is watching Yellen to see if she discusses inflation, which the Fed has said is being kept low by transitory factors. CPI showed inflation picked up in late August due to the influence of hurricanes, after running at a low level for the past several months. There is an important piece of inflation data Friday, the personal consumption expenditure prices data. Core PCE is expected to rise by 0.2 percent in August, after a 0.1 percent gain in July. There is also personal spending and consumption data, expected to show a gain of 0.2 percent in spending, and a gain of 0.4 percent in income. "I would expect it to move away from its 1.4 percent trend it's been in for the summer here … probably move up to 1.5 to 1.6 percent year over year," Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group. He said there could be a pickup in spending because homeowners in hurricane-hit areas stocked up on goods from hardware stores and elsewhere ahead of the storms. Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in the last several days of August, while Irma slammed Florida in September. Hurricane Maria left a trail of destruction across Puerto Rico in the past week, and the island is now without water and power. But the August number will not show much storm impact. There has been an elevation in unemployment claims in the last several weeks, and that could continue. "It probably will have more impact on the income number than the spending number," Rick said. He said consumer confidence Tuesday and consumer sentiment Friday could show a trend higher. "The stock market keeps hitting record highs ... the market and real estate ... that's the biggest driver of why people have confidence and feel good," he said. There are several earnings in the week ahead, including the cruise line Carnival, which is expected to discuss the impact of hurricanes Tuesday when it releases earnings. Nike and Micron also report that day. Fed speakers are back on the speaking circuit after this week's meeting. Besides Yellen, there are more than a dozen speaking events. This past week saw the following moves in the S&P: Major Indices End of Week: Bird's Eye view of the Major Futures Markets on Friday: Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead: Sector Performance WTD, MTD, YTD: Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD thus far in 2017- Here are the current pullback/correction levels for the major indices as of this week ending- Here are the most notable earnings releases calendar due out for this upcoming week ahead: ($MU $RAD $RHT $NKE $BBRY $THO $KBH $DRI $PTN $ACN $FDS $INFO $SNX $ASNA $MTN $JBL $PIR $CTAS $WOR $CAG) ShadowTrader Video Weekly 9.24.17 - Wake me up when September ends Video from ShadowTrader Peter Reznicek Have a wonderful trading week ahead on this final trading week of the month and of Q3 everyone!
German elections are today (I think the results might already be out by now? but not sure...if someone would like to post it in here please by all means feel free!). What else you guys got on your radar for this upcoming trading week? This is the final trading week for the month of September, and for Q3. Hope you guys all had a great weekend and looking forward to seeing what the new trading week has in store for us! GL to all and hope y'alls kill it this week! $$$
Been a while since Ron Walker put out a video. His vids can be kind of boring and long, but extremely extensive if you're really into pure T/A (technical analysis)! 9/22 Stock Market Update Video from TheChartPatternTrader Ron Walker
One more post in here... Let's see if this holds true this year again but according to Stock Trader's Almanac the final 5 trading days of Q3 have typically been on the bearish side. Down 7 of the last 9 years.
Morning! Is oil trying to breakout of this range here? Thought we might see another lower high form the other week, but this continues to power its way higher. We are however heading into a more seasonally weaker period for black gold. It has been a pretty nice run since the beginning of Sept. Got some horizontal resistance coming up soon. Not sure if this is ready for new highs quite yet. Thoughts?
Does anyone know the best place to go for advanced information on earnings? By advanced, I mean, Info about the earnings date four to six weeks before the company announces. I went to Yahoo's earnings calendar and got a long list of stocks that were going to announce at the end of October and beginning of November. But the options contracts for those dates weren't making a lot of sense to me. So I googled individual companies and Nasdaq had different earnings dates than yahoo. Is Nasdaq accurate and yahoo doesn't know what it's talking about? Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer this.
Looking at USO the ETF, I have a range for oil The trend of lower highs has been broken, but this ETF is nearing $11, where a lot of supply came in on 3/8. Anticipating a pullback there, then see if it can find a higher support above $9.30 in this ETF. If the ETF stays above $10.30 then I like the inverse head and shoulders that is setup.
Quite the chop fest today ... though markets have moved off their earlier morning highs. Transports with a new ATH today (first since July) and small caps still powering higher.
Anyone know some AI stocks? motifinvesting has several AI motifs so not sure which one. I've been looking at HDP and CLDR, who are building stuff on top of Hadoop. Is CGNX an AI stock? Trying to get a feel of what AI stocks do. Certainly VERI is one, and that one went nuts.
IT'S HERE: All the details of Trump's massive tax plan http://www.businessinsider.com/trum...te-individual-brackets-deductions-cuts-2017-9 Business tax changes: A 20% corporate tax rate. This is the first time Trump has publicly backed down from one of his earliest campaign promises: a 15% corporate tax rate. The budget math required for a 15% rate was too difficult, so the somewhat higher rate is the opening bid. The current statutory federal rate is 35%. A 25% rate for pass-through businesses. Instead of getting taxed at an individual rate for business profits, people who own their own business would pay at the pass-through rate. The plan also says it will consider rules to prevent "personal income" from being taxed at this rate. Mnuchin previously suggested there may be limitations on what types of businesses get this rate — it could apply only to goods producers and not service-oriented companies to prevent people from creating limited-liability corporations to store their assets and receive a lower rate. Elimination of some business deductions, industry-specific incentives, and more. There are few details, but the plan includes language regarding the "streamlining" of business tax breaks. A one-time repatriation tax. All overseas assets from US-owned companies would be considered repatriated and taxed at a one-time lower rate — this is designed to bring corporate profits back from overseas. Illiquid assets like real estate would be taxed at a lower rate than cash or cash equivalents, and the payments would be spread out over time. While there is no precise number in the plan, officials have indicated the rate could end up somewhere around 10%. Personal tax changes: A bottom individual tax rate of 12%. The plan specifies three tax brackets, with the lowest rate being 12%. That would represent a slight bump in the bottom bracket, which is now 10%. People currently in the 15% marginal tax bracket would most likely be included here. A middle tax bracket of 25%. The incomes in this bracket aren't specified. The top individual tax rate of 35%. The current top rate is 39.6%. The possibility of a fourth, higher bracket. Because of Trump's insistence that taxes for the wealthiest Americans not decrease, the plan proposes the possibility of a fourth tax bracket at a rate higher than 35% if the tax-writing committees wish. "An additional top rate may apply to the highest-income taxpayers to ensure that the reformed tax code is at least as progressive as the existing tax code and does not shift the tax burden from high-income to lower- and middle-income taxpayers," the plan reads. A larger standard deduction. To avoid raising taxes on those currently in the 10% tax bracket, the standard deduction for all taxes would increase to $12,000 for individuals (up from $6,350) and $24,000 for married couples (up from $12,700). These are slightly less than the doubled deductions expected — and as Business Insider's Josh Barro noted, the idea that this would save people money may be misleading. Eliminates most itemized deductions. The only deduction preserved explicitly in the plan is for charitable gifts and home-mortgage interest. Increases the size of the child tax credit. A pet project of Ivanka Trump, the proposal is to make the first $1,000 of the child tax credit refundable and increase the income level at which the credit would phase out. Vague promises on retirement savings and other deductions. Sections of the plan refer to retirement savings and other "provisions," but details are sparse. Elimination of the state and local tax deduction. The so-called SALT deduction allows people to deduct what they pay in state and local taxes from their federal tax bill. Most of the people who take this deduction are wealthier Americans in Democratic states — about one-third of the beneficiaries are in New York, New Jersey, and California. Elimination of the estate tax. Called the "death tax" in the plan, this applies only to inherited assets totaling $5.49 million or more in 2017. Very few households pay the estate tax, but it has long been a target for Republicans.
