2018 market predictions - Will it be as rocky as last year?

Date 2018/1/9 14:55:49 | Topic: Opinion

The US constitutional crisis, U.S. conflict with North Korea, continued Ukraine-Russia conflict and other geopolitical issues are expected to affect markets.

 


By David Chapman for Born2Invest, Jan 9, 2018

 

Welcome to 2018. So far it looks the same as 2017. The President of the United States ended the old year and began the one with a barrage of tweets, including one threatening nuclear annihilation with the “Little Rocket Man” of North Korea. The world can only hope they keep it to each other and not involve the rest of us. Markets did well in 2017 as they have for the past eight years. Bitcoin did exceptionally well, gaining over 1,300% even as it was down 20% from its high. Most people should have seen their portfolios rise. It is not difficult making money in a rising market. The real test comes in a down market.

 

In our last missive of 2017 (December 18, 2017), we outlined a series of risks that could upend global markets. It was not surprising to see other analysts note many of the same risks. Political analysts in their predictions for 2018 managed to note more than a few that could upend global markets even though their focus was political, not economic or financial. One of the more interesting ones was given to us by Tony Burman, a former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News writing for the Toronto Star who outlined “Ten international headlines you’ll read in 2018” (Toronto Star, December 30, 2017).

 

No, not all of Mr. Burman’s predictions pertained to markets but 5 of them stood out. Mr. Burman noted that of his 10 predictions for 2017 he got 9 of them right, more or less. So maybe he is on to something. We don’t predict but instead lay out the risks that investors should be paying attention to. The five that we noted (using Burman’s headlines) were as follows

 

America’s constitutional crisis

 

Robert Mueller’s investigation into what is known as RussiaGate could lead to an investigation into Trump’s political and business empire. That, in turn, could trigger a constitutional crisis if Trump were to conduct a Nixonian “Saturday Night Massacre.” Trump and GOP representatives have been attacking the Mueller investigation as they have been taking cues from news organizations such as Fox News that has been calling it “a coup in America.”

 

Trump and others have also been attacking the U.S. Justice Department. Add into this mix the release of an insider book on the Trump administration where attempts are being made to prevent its release. We have noted that if the Mueller investigation were to break wide open it could shake the confidence of markets globally.

 

[…]

https://born2invest.com/articles/2018- ... t-predictions-rocky-year/

 





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