Well, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) blew the doors off everyone Thursday afternoon, just like Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) did on Wednesday afternoon (although I’d like to point out that 50% of the pop has already vanished).
Sparkly, doe-eyed imp that I am, I’d also like to point out that AAPL actually wound up lower in price Thursday, after having doubled their profits and shocking everyone with their amazing results. In other words, all the good news is way more than priced in, and when the glorious day comes that bad news comes back into fashion, these stocks are going to be destroyed to the collective tune of trillions of dollars.
Another household name that reported after Thursday’s close was Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), which plunged. Just now, I went off to find out TWTR’s P/E ratio so I could make some snarky remark, but since the company makes absolutely no profit at all, I am denied the privilege.
As earnings season dies down, it’s going to be replaced by politics. And by politics I am not talking about the kind of stuff that poisoned this place a year ago (and, through heroic efforts on the part of many, including The Director, has died down and created a very civil atmosphere). I am instead referring to the legislative battles with respect to tax hikes and new government spending programs (AKA free money, to the tune of trillions).
It’s actually kind of cute that the most ambitious tax hike is $1.5 trillion—if he gets everything he wants—over a DECADE—and assuming the economy keeps going great—whereas the immediate, here-and-now spending is measured in the multiples of trillions.
It’s all pretty much pointless, but it’ll be a mildly interesting show to watch the grandstanding and chest-beating. One thing is for sure, though, and I can guarantee you this—the Internal Revenue Service is going to get vastly, vastly more powerful and brutal, and their uptrend is going to be intact for decades to come. They’ve been starved to death, and with the government beast tens of trillions of dollars in debt, and absolutely desperate for fresh revenue streams, you can bet that the federal government’s underutilized money funnel is going to get every resource imaginable to suck the blood out of one and all.