Stock Markets: Merry Christmas 2017

(Drivebycuriosity) - Christmas is the season for reflection but also for giving gifts. "The best aspect of Christmas is the aspect usually decried by the mystics: the fact that Christmas has been commercialized. The gift-buying . . . stimulates an enormous outpouring of ingenuity in the creation of products devoted to a single purpose: to give men pleasure. And the street decorations put up by department stores and other institutions—the Christmas trees, the winking lights, the glittering colors—provide the city with a spectacular display, which only “commercial greed” could afford to give us. One would have to be terribly depressed to resist the wonderful gaiety of that spectacle". From the Ayn Rand Lexicon (aynrand).

Investors received this year ample presents. On Friday the U.S. stock market closed near an all-time high. The S&P 500, a gauge for the U.S stock market, gained 18% year-to-date and continued so the rally of 2016. The international stock markets are responding to a better global economic environment. Europe`s & Japan`s economies are prospering again, China & India are both growing more than 6% and other emerging economies even faster. The new US administration is more business friendly than the former, cancelling the trend to more regulation and already cut corporation taxes, which should boost US economy further in 2018 and beyond. Companies are also benefiting from a new industrial revolution: Advances in Internet, mobile computing, 3-d-printing, robotics, nano- & biotechnology and other technologies are reducing costs, raising efficiency and creating new markets. I suppose that accelerating global economic growth will foster more gains on the stock market in 2018.

Merry Christmas to everyone!