Week of Feb 16 2018 Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them… Risk control is the most important thing in trading. If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple: Get out, because you can always get back in.” Paul Tudor Jones
1. OxyContin Maker Stops Promoting Opioids — OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is stopping to promote the drug and other opioids to doctors amid a series of state and municipal lawsuits that blame the company for contributing to the opioid epidemic. It will also cut its U.S. sales force by more than 50%, to about 200 people, while remaining representatives “will no longer be visiting offices to engage in discussions about opioid products.”
2. ‘5G.Connected’ Debuts at Olympics — attendees of the Winter Olympic games in Pyeongchang are experiencing the future of wireless technology. The “5G.Connected” showcase, engineered by KT Corp. (NYSE:KT), uses technology from Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) and Samsung Electronics (OTC:SSNLF), for the world’s first broad-scale 5G network. At 10 gigabits a second, it’s about 100 times faster than 4G.
3. Trump To Endorse $0.25/gallon Gasoline Tax Hike — Pres. Trump stated late last week that he would support a $0.25/gallon increase in federal gasoline and diesel taxes to help pay for upgrading U.S. roads, bridges and other public works. The government has not raised the gas tax since 1993, under the Clinton administration. The current federal levy is 18.4 cents a gallon on retail gasoline and 24.4 cents for a gallon of diesel.
4. Big Investor Moves in Latest 4Q 13-F filings — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) reported a new fourth quarter stake in Teva (NYSE:TEVA), and bought more shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), which surpassed Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) as its largest common stock investment. Dan Loeb’s Third Point took a 2M share stake in Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), while David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital showed several new big retailer holdings in J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP), Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN), Kohl’s (NYSE:KSS) and Under Armour (NYSE:UAA).
5. Senate Blocks Immigration Plans — the Senate blocked four immigration-related proposals late last week, including a bipartisan plan that would have provided $25B for border security and a path to citizenship for 1.8M young, undocumented immigrants. A separate measure that lost by a large margin would’ve ended a diversity visa lottery program and imposed strict limits on family-based migration.
6. Latest Weekly AAII Sentiment — In this week’s survey, bullish sentiment increased from 37.0% up to 48.5% for a gain of 11.5 percentage points. That’s the largest weekly increase since last September.
Bearish sentiment plunged from 35.0% down to 21.4%. That’s the largest weekly decline in two years!
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: