Thoughts {03.07.17}

I wish somebody would take away President Trump's Twitter account or at least suggest to him that he wait 10 minutes each time he types in a post before he sends it.  Maybe by that time cooler heads would prevail.

Snap Inc.  {SNAP} the first big tech IPO of the year or for that manner in a long time came public last week and immediately traded to a huge premium from its initial price offering.  Huge speculative froth around this name in the weeks leading up to its offering.  The stock was priced at $17.00 last week and immediately traded to a better than 40% premium.  Well its now lower than its opening price.   Anybody who bought after that initial pricing is now losing money unless they were smart enough to bail already.  Classic buy the hype mentality of a certain kind of investor.  Actually let's not call them investors but rather gamblers.  Potentially another sign that we've entered into a more speculative period in the markets.  {No positions in SNAP.}

Congress unveiled its replacement to the Affordable Care Act {"Obamacare"}yesterday to much grumbling and growling by nearly all.  You can see some of the proposed highlights here.  I'm barely paying attention to this right now as it's likely that what you're seeing now will undergo substantial changes in the sausage making factory that passes for Congress by the time we finally see a deal.  What's important for the markets is that progress on fixing this keeps inching along through the legislative process.  Also, we need to see an end result that doesn't strap the same financial millstone around individuals and businesses that we see from the current offering.  Stay tuned on this one but realize we're only at the beginning of the process.

I have to be out tomorrow so the next post here will be Thursday.  No posting Friday but back early next week.