It's less technology but growth people are paying through the nose for, and for good reason given the years of stagnant growth and now rising inflation.

There is already rotation towards low debt stocks and "safer" plays. Strangely, there are some stocks that will do just fine but a lot of stocks that won't if rates continue to rise. Sadly, i think the Federal reserve will be forced to keep raising rates because rates are going up with or without them. The Federal Reserve is reactionary to inflation and higher rates. They are not the instigators of higher rates although they have done plenty to cause asset inflation, especially in housing.

Decreasing the money supply is ok as long as the economy is growing, especially given the pickup in the deficit through tax cuts. The issue is, a trade war can end growth rapidly but also causes inflation. Cutting money supply slows inflationary ramifications but leads to a dampening of economic activity which can be deadly combined with monetary tightening.

The sad fact is, it is dangerous tightening this late in the cycle and the Federal Reserve knows it. It is a travesty they tightened this late in the cycle and shows they have absolutely no self control anymore. Rather than smoothing out cycles they are contributing to bigger and more nasty cycles and they probably know it. Sadly, it gives them power.

You are right about correlation, especially in market downturns. Sadly oftentimes diversifying actually puts those looking for more safety into more volatile investments that tend to do worse in downturns. in reality, if you think a downturn is coming then the best hedge tends to be in shorter term treasuries and stocks with little to no debt and free cash flow. Even then, you may get hit a bit but at least these investments recover or have a way out of losses *holding bonds to maturity or holding stocks until they recover).

The gas price screaming in Washington is absurd. As noted the summer price rise is nothing unusual. This is very dangerous behavior given that there is no emergency.

The economy is doing better although some of the increased spending is due to inflationary pressure more than anything else. I don't see any major downturn in the next 6 months unless some war causes oil to rise sharply, the trade war turns uglier than it is already, or some unknown event causes everyone to be risk adverse suddenly.

Actually the world needs a cheap, dense, and hopefully safe electric energy storage system more than anything else. This would solve a lot. For energy production, the big hope is geothermal and/or fusion although modern nuclear power plants are much safer as well. Solar helps as does wind energy, but it won't solve our growing energy needs, especially without a dense efficient way of storing it.

Brand fanatics are infatuated with the brand but it doesn't mean they own or buy the product. Brand loyalty is loyalty to the brand through purchasing and love of the product they own. There are more followers and investors of the stock than owners of Tesla cars and solar panels. This has a lot to do with its constant capitalization and massive debt load which at some point becomes a burden rather than a benefit.

Sadly the Federal Reserve now is part of the problem playing political games to extend cycles and amplify downturns to get more power and please politicians. Then their excuse for their poor pro-cyclical behavior is they are powerless to do anything because they destroyed their anti-cyclical powers enriching those in power to please them.

The central bank today is exhibiting the same bad nature as the central bank of old that the US did away with. The Federal Reserve needs someone to push its nose to the grindstone and realize its primary purpose is to sell government debt successfully which QE and rate manipulations undermine slowly but inevitably.

The problem is that those who made the mistake to avoid FANG stocks are a bit late to the party. To those, I'd recommend Google or Apple (which is in FAANG) and has better traditional "value" metrics than the others.