2018’s Perfect Lesson

Never forget 2018’s perfect lesson:

3.7% unemployment
3% wage growth
25% earnings growth
Massive tax cuts

We got the entire benefit of these things PULLED FORWARD into 2017.

That’s how the stock market works. https://t.co/kDkQY4XMdT

— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) December 31, 2018

If I told you that next year we’d have 3% GDP, no wars, huge fiscal stimulus for corporations, record buybacks, high consumer confidence, wage growth and 25% earnings growth, you’d probably forecast a double-digit gain for stocks during that year, wouldn’t you? Not down 6%…

— Downtown Josh Brown (@ReformedBroker) December 31, 2018

There’s a lot I still have to learn and I realize how little I know the more that time goes on. But there are a handful of things that I’m certain of so far in my career in the investment business. One of them is that markets anticipate the future – they are a reflection of everyone’s opinion about what is going to happen. And not their casual opinions but their bets – opinions backed with real money.

In 2017, particularly the end of the year, we began to price in the potential for large tax cuts and stable, growing economy. Sure enough, both of those arrived in 2018 but the money had already been made by those who had correctly anticipated that environment during calendar 2017.

They could have been wrong in their betting. That was the risk that they took. The risk paid off.

But that was then, this is now. What are the markets currently anticipating for 2019?