The real battle is on cloud growth in AI with Azure, AWS, and GCP and who will dominate machine learning on them. Amazon has the lead on cloud services although Microsoft has a huge network. Google seems more dominant in machine learning which keeps them in the cloud game and is also leading to inroads into AWS and Azure. I don't believe winning cloud services is Googles main aim.

IBM once again seems not to be in the picture and is playing its own game. The public cloud game is a small fragment of the market and by far isn't the most profitable. The reason why IBM is down is because they are missing the boat again and any techy in this field knows it. Likewise, the mainframe business is in decline because the cloud business is eating more and more of this market as security and its advantages grow. I think IBM is fairly valued and they need a real tech savvy growth oriented management team asap.

The market is not going up because of a #Trump put, it is going up because of the tax cut without a spending cut. This is called fiscal stimulus and it has negated the rather limited drop in monetary stimulus. If anything, the #tariffs and shenanigance in Washington over Internet regulation is holding the market back. If tariffs are cut and the trade war ends it will be a positive just like if the absurd hearings on #Twitter, #Google, and #Facebook end, that will help those stocks.

If or when this happens is debatable. Certainly if the whole market starts tanking, hopefully both of these will end and the government will focus on their job rather than creating more problems. Unfortunately, this is most likely to happen when the economy turns sour, providing limited relief, but most likely it will not turn the tide by itself.

It's positive that #oil is holding up after the summer driving season. There is a lot of risk in betting on its downside right now given the Mideast and continued demand growth from Asia and SE Asia.

#Options do give you leverage and can boost your returns significantly if they go your way. However, one must be aware they are taking additional risks in doing so. It does make sense having a professional do it in a manor to protect your assets rather than accidentally gambling with options and losing.

#Tradewars seldom come out with any winners as all economists will tell you. This is more political than economic.

This is concerning despite being insulated from the effects by a stimulus package in the US with relatively no spending cuts. The main hurt is being generated in 3rd world countries that don't benefit from China outsourcing and losing manufacturing jobs to SE Asia. #TradeWars are never good and would look worse except for Europe's link up with Asian suppliers, a gradual rise in #oil prices, and the fact the US is still buying heavily from China despite the #TradeWar #tariffs.

It makes sense. Stocks are the only thing that can accommodate increases in inflation which is what will happen as more tariffs get loped on. This is really added taxation. Republicans should do something about it, but they should also protest the budget deficit as well. So much for fiscally conservative.

The upswing is probably because of trade tensions. Clearly SE Asia is the beneficiary of China US tensions because they undercut China on prices even more now. This will only speed up the migration of manufacturing to cheaper producing countries. The rest of the world's emerging markets I wouldn't be too excited about though.

I think the upswing is not emerging markets getting used to tighter US currency and trade tensions, but is more a factor on who benefits from the China US trade war.

Good list. I'd add:

11. Worry about the big things but don't expect catastrophe tomorrow because of them. Downturns require catalysts.

Equally important is the list of things we haven't learned:

1. TBTF banks are bad. We let them get bigger and regulated them, however, this doesn't solve the problem. The problem is not solved until one of them is not big enough to take down our economy.

2. The Federal Reserve's easy money policies can go too far and create worse downturns that they can't resolve with their regular tools. The issue is not giving them new and more powerful tools like QE, but preventing them from misusing their tools like artificially lowering interest rates throughout the cycle so they are ineffective when we git a cyclical downturn. I can go on but its best if people just read basic economics books.

3. What banks are allowed to do in the derivatives market needs to spelled out and banks and financial institutions should not be allowed to offsheet their risk by creating and underwriting derivatives companies without massive disclosure. Furthermore, those companies that do write derivatives must prove they are able pay the derivatives bets they engage in. As all regulators know, it is impossible for the existing derivatives writers to pay out their risk if the market crashes badly. Why? Because the derivatives bets already engaged in exceed all the money in the world many times over. We are not talking about stock options or the like. We are talking about largely unregulated derivatives with very little liquidity.

4. There is risk in every decision. The biggest risk this cycle was keeping your money on the sidelines as housing, education, and healthcare costs skyrocketed. Getting in now is a bit late but the risks of not being in at all still remain making it painfully obvious why getting in early is better.

5. Last, inflation metrics are so wildly off what we need is a cost of living indicator in which to gauge your investment decisions. If you made 3% on your money you would appear to be doing ok versus the governments cracked inflation gage, but you would have been on the losing side of life in most areas where housing costs have doubled or more and health insurance has skyrocketed.

What is affecting the market right now is tech and semiconductors. Tech was helping carry the market higher, but with the Republicans attacking the Internet and threatening regulations which goes against Trumps deregulation and core Republican anti-regulatory beliefs it is no wonder tech has faltered. As for semiconductors, the real issue is that to fuel growth in this area recently semiconductor players are stepping on each others feet to grow. The cycle does seem a bit tired and open warfare is inevitable. Until the losers are known, semis are liable to keep hurting until someone is flushed out.

For materials and energy, the continued worry over trade wars lingers. Thus this lack of upward momentum is 100% generated from Washington and nothing more. For those wondering what Republicans are doing, join the crowd. Their anti-free market, anti-free trade, pro-tech regulatory message is confusing Republicans and seems to be implying they need someone to check their worst inclinations as well. It is strange that Democrats are the only viable counter to their recent actions. I guess in Washington often gridlock is better than people pressing absurd ideas onto the market.

We need a party that believes in capitalism. Apparently the Republican party has also given up on this and may be why they will loose in the next election. A vote for Democrats seems more a vote for stability and do nothing in Washington than anything else at this point in time.