Charts of the Day: Trade and the Dow

We'll just keep this thread going as the headlines on trade roll in:

Hugely Successful People Can Be Hugely Bad Economists

In Don Boudreaux's reply (below) to a concerned reader he makes the point that I find myself making over and over again to family, friends and business associates about the likes of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Wilbur Ross and other famously successful people in their chosen fields: That is, having mastered the art of, say, locating and buying undervalued companies, technological innovation, social media or spanning the globe in search of distressed debt to buy, does not, in any way shape or form, make one a great, good, or even mediocre economist. Fact is -- based on notions these gents have passed along over the years about taxation, regulation, universal income, trade and per below the relationship between technology and employment -- they are at times profoundly bad economists.

CEOs Feeling Good

The latest Fortune 500 CEO Poll jibes with our analysis of present conditions. I.e., looks (at this juncture) like there's room for the expansion to run.

Here are the highlights from this morning's Fortune CEO Daily Report:

Charts of the Day

Last Thursday we got this headline:

Trump Says He Doubts China Negotiations Will Succeed

And we got this price action in the Dow:

This Week's Message: Don't Be A Bull Or A Bear: Be What Conditions Dictate!

Seems like I'm getting more emails lately with folks forwarding often pithy analyses of why some data point spells imminent doom for the economy and, by default, for the equity market. Problem being, the last few have featured, as I just hinted, merely one data point.

Headline of the Day: This is good news for the market, however....

The spirit of this headline -- as opposed to the words themselves -- is good news for the equity market.

China to `Significantly' Increase U.S. Buying After Trade Talks

Way Wrong Wilbur!

The protectionism debate has been a fascination of mine ever since I read the 1946 classic Economics in One Lesson (still my top economics book pick) many many moons ago.