“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Bernard Baruch

1. Chief Executives of Some of America’s Largest Retailers Rallied to Kill a U.S. border tax — Chief executives of some of America’s largest retailers, including Target (NYSE:TGT), Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), Gap (NYSE:GPS) and AutoZone (NYSE:AZO), will make their case that an import tax would raise consumer prices and hurt their businesses. Best Buy has even circulated a flyer to lawmakers, which cites an analyst forecast that a 20% tax would wipe out the company’s projected annual net income of $1B and turn it into a $2B loss. Furthermore, the EU and other U.S. trading partners have begun laying the groundwork for a legal challenge to an American border tax proposal in a move that could trigger the biggest case in World Trade Organization history.
2. Humana Pulls out of Obamacare for 2018 — Humana (NYSE:HUM) said it will pull out of the Affordable Care Act marketplace in 2018, making the announcement after it ended a merger agreement with Aetna (NYSE:AET). President Trump said the decision was proof that “Obamacare continues to fail” and “will repeal, replace & save healthcare for ALL Americans.”
3. CEO Dorsey buys $7M in Twitter stock — CEO Jack Dorsey bought $7M worth of TWTR shares last week, showing investors just how much confidence he has that Twitter can turn around its business. He tweeted about the stake on Valentine’s Day, appropriately adding the hashtag “Love Twitter.” The 426,000 shares ranged in price from $15.84 to $16.60 for around $7 million dollars.
4. Greek Bailout Deal to Miss Deadline — Eurozone finance ministers and the IMF seem likely to miss the coming week’s deadline to agree on a €7B bailout for Greece. The two sides remain at loggerheads over an IMF demand that Athens be granted debt relief and easier surplus targets, meaning a pact may now be months away. While Greece won’t face bankruptcy trouble until July, eurozone officials were racing to strike a deal so the drama wouldn’t be forced into the upcoming Dutch and French elections.
5. AAII Market Sentiment As Neutral As It Gets — the latest data from AAII shows a picture that is just about as neutral as it gets. As shown in the chart below, bullish sentiment this week came in at 33.09%. This is the fifth straight week that bullish sentiment has been below 40%, and the 111th straight week that bulls have failed to take a majority, and that makes this the longest sub-50% run in bullish sentiment in the history of the AAII survey.

Like the bulls, slightly less than a third (32.36%) of investors placed themselves in the bearish camp this week, but with stocks at record highs, you would expect a low level of bearish sentiment.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: