Happy and prosperous 2017 everyone.

It's time for this guy to go..

The president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, spent years in his previous role as Luxembourg’s prime minister secretly blocking EU efforts to tackle tax avoidance by multinational corporations, leaked documents reveal. Years’ worth of confidential German diplomatic cables provide a candid account of Luxembourg’s obstructive manoeuvres inside one of Brussels’ most secretive committees. The code of conduct group on business taxation was set up almost 19 years ago to prevent member states from being played off against one another by increasingly powerful multinational businesses, eager to shift profits across borders and avoid tax.

Jean-Claude Juncker blocked EU curbs on tax avoidance, cables show | Business | The Guardian

He had one ally though:

Despite having a population of just 560,000, Luxembourg was able to resist widely supported EU tax reforms, its dissenting voice often backed only by that of the Netherlands.

Jean-Claude Juncker blocked EU curbs on tax avoidance, cables show | Business | The Guardian

An unprecedented international investigation into tax deals struck with Luxembourg has uncovered the multi-billion dollar tax secrets of some of the world’s largest multinational corporations. A cache of almost 28,000 pages of leaked tax agreements, returns and other sensitive papers relating to over 1,000 businesses paints a damning picture of an EU state which is quietly rubber-stamping tax avoidance on an industrial scale.

Luxembourg tax files: how tiny state rubber-stamped tax avoidance on an industrial scale | Business | The Guardian

Here the usual nonsense about trends in the markets that can supposedly be gauged by how the first month develops. Keep in mind that history doesn't have a habit of repeating itself, at least not in any exact manner..

"The data show this indicator to be surprisingly accurate, especially during January advances," according to a report from S&P Global Market Intelligence. If the S&P gains in January, then the average gain in the remaining 11 months of the year is 11.5%, according to data from 1945 through 2015, the S&P Global report states. The report says the pattern is accurate 84% of the time, which in stock market terms, is a near certainty.  If the index declines, then the gains in the remainder of the year average 0.8%, but this is accurate only 41% of the time.

What Does 2017 Have in Store? 3 Market Metrics That Will Tell You - Pg.2 - TheStreet

We have a new article out:

• The markets have risen inexorably, despite numerous sizable market risks and already steep valuations.
• We seem to live in markets that price in all good news and ignore risks unless these actually turn real.
• Since that can happen with surprising speed, we give a few pointers on how to deal with this situation.

The Black Swan Market - SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCAIA) | Seeking Alpha

In tune with the previous entry..

I see three sources of uncertainty that the market is ignoring: 1) Donald Trump’s policies may not stimulate growth as much as many investors assume. 2) The president-elect’s policies are unsettled, incoherent or contradictory, leaving uncertainty about whether the net impact will be positive or negative. 3) And some of Trump’s policies may actually retard growth.

Investors ignoring the risks in Trump’s presidency - MarketWatch

We have a pretty well received new article out:

• Microsoft is on a roll with its cloud business and cool hardware. And there is more to come, like the HoloLens.
• Cracking the ability to run Windows on Snapdragon chips opens up old markets where Microsoft had already lost, as well as new markets.
• This is bad news for Intel, Chromebooks, and Apple.

Exciting Times At Microsoft - Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) | Seeking Alpha

Fairly amazing stuff this..

Businesses haven't been spending in the U.S., and it's possible that Capitol Hill dysfunction is partly to blame. A 10 percent rise in the U.S. partisan conflict index (a gauge that tracks the degree of political disagreement in the nation based on newspaper articles) results in a 0.4 percentage point increase in average cash-to-total assets above trend about one year after the shock, based on new Bank of England research. The working paper used data on cash holdings from the Compustat database for the period between 1985 and 2014.

Strife Between Democrats and Republicans Curbs Business Spending - Bloomberg

One concern that transcends borders is growing inequality: research finds that a highly uneven income distribution hurts growth. Take this recent paper, which is scheduled to be discussed at the American Economic Association's annual meetings in Chicago this weekend. Princeton University's Adrien Auclert and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Matthew Rognlie find that a temporary boost to inequality lowers output modestly, partly because higher-income people are less likely to spend every additional dollar they earn. A permanently wider income gap can have a much larger effect on growth.

Strife Between Democrats and Republicans Curbs Business Spending - Bloomberg

Some interesting investment rules..

1. Avoid home country bias — Kelly says that there is "the tendency of investors around the world to be over-invested in securities of their own country." 2. Don't focus on past performance — Kelly says investors should not stuff their portfolios with assets that have previously had a stellar run but instead should look at "current valuations and future prospects." "These valuations and prospects suggest more reasons for caution around U.S. stocks and optimism around international stocks than investors have demonstrated over the last few years and particularly over the last few weeks," he said.

JPMorgan Asset Management: Investment strategy and tips - Business Insider

And what happened to European earnings??

The lack of earnings growth from European companies does not appear to be a top-line issue. Both real GDP and sales have recovered to levels now exceeding prior-cycle highs. Earnings, however, are still languishing near prior-cycle lows (Figure 5). In fact, remarkably European companies have broadly kept pace with their US counterparts on sales over the previous five years (Figure 6). Yet the gap in earnings to the US is still at multi-decade highs. Both charts suggest that the poor performance on earnings is not a top-line issue.

Starting 2017 in the right spirit… with a contender for the most depressing chart in Europe | FT Alphaville

The practical way to take advantage of the January Effect is to buy dips in certain stocks that may occur for the following two reasons: 1. Tax-loss selling. One strategy that is commonly employed by investors is to offset gains by taking losses on certain stocks. Such selling for tax purposes artificially depresses the price of certain stocks. 2. Window dressing. Portfolio managers in their reports do not want to show investors that they were holding stocks that did not do well. Therefore, they sell such stocks, artificially depressing them further.

How the ‘January Effect’ in stocks can help you pocket quick gains - MarketWatch

And they even have an idea..

The so-called January Effect offers an opportunity to potentially make about 30% in three months in the stock market. The January Effect is a phenomenon that makes prices of certain stocks rise more than indices do. In the past 30 years, we have made money from the January Effect about 75% of the time, broken even about 10% of the time, and lost money about 15% of the time. For 2017, The Arora Report has published a list of 32 stocks, complete with “buy” zones and recommended position sizes to profit from the January Effect. Let us illustrate this with an example of hospital operator Community Health Systems CYH Community Health is on the list.

How the ‘January Effect’ in stocks can help you pocket quick gains - MarketWatch

An app that wanrs you if Trump twitters about your stock? Not sure what to make of this, it has the potential to become a racket..

When President-elect Donald Trump tweets about a public company, the market listens.  And if you hold the stock of one of the companies that has come into Trump's crosshairs, finance app Trigger thinks you'll want to know about it. The free iPhone app works by letting you set up financial "triggers," which you can then use to guide your investment decisions. For example, you can set a reminder to sell a stock when its price reaches a certain level, moves a specific percentage, hits a one-year low or high, and so on. When the condition occurs, Trigger sends you a notification, and you can decide whether to act on it.

Triggers helps you trade stocks on Trump's tweets - Business Insider