Uncategorized

Two of America’s technology giants are under attack. The U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and dozens of U.S. states are suing Google and building cases against Facebook, alleging anticompetitive behavior by the firms individually and by working together.

Of course, the mega-cap tech giants are fighting back.

Google, which is being hammered hard over its virtual advertising monopoly, retorted in a blog, “To suggest that the ad tech sector is lacking competition is simply not true, to the contrary, the industry is famously crowded. There are thousands of companies, large and small, working together and in competition with each other to power digital advertising across the web, each with different specialties and technologies.”

Regulators aren’t buying it.

With so much heat coming from above and below, the biggest tech companies in America, in the world, are facing almost impossible-to-defend-against attacks on their unseen and allegedly unseemly business practices, with some possibly landing on the chopping block.

Long before any final hammers come down, investors want to know what to do with their stocks, specifically Google and Facebook.

Here’s what I’m recommending…

Your Capital Wave Forecast for this week is “bullish.” For this month, for the first quarter of 2021, and for the year, it’s bullish.

That doesn’t mean we’re not on “bubble watch,” because we are.

The forecast is bullish because equity markets can continue to rise as bubbles self-deflate, get pierced, or burst spectacularly.

That’s where we’re at. That’s how strong momentum is coming out of 2020 and going into 2021. The same momentum-drivers will likely persist throughout the first quarter and probably the first half of the year.

Here’s what’s on my radar for the first week of 2021…

Big technology companies are under attack, again. After fighting off frontal assaults for years, giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple are about to be hit from all sides.

The European Union is nearing completion of aggressive legislation to curb big tech’s ever-widening reach and range while the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and dozens of states plow ahead with investigations of their own.

Here’s what’s at stake for the titans of tech…

If you’re old enough to have lived through the “disco era,” you know the song “More, More, More” by Greg Diamond and performed by Andrea True. That mega-hit was released in February 1976 and became one of the most popular and played songs in discos around the world.

And, yeah, I was there.

It’s also what investors and markets are singing and dancing to right now, particularly the lyrics: “More, more, more / How do you like it, how do you like it?”

And as former Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) CEO Chuck Prince told the Financial Times in July 2007, long after the disco era passed and right before the financial crisis, “As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.”

If you aren’t getting it, if you haven’t gotten the beat yet, just listen; it’s hard-driving and hypnotic. It’s about more, more, more.

Here’s what I mean…

Since it’s the holiday season and gift-giving is the order of the day, SoftBank Group Corp. (OTC:SFTBY) is smiling on itself. It’s gifting itself with a SPAC, which, as sure as the earth’s still turning, won’t be its last.

Should you buy into this SoftBank SPAC when it IPOs? Should you buy into any SoftBank SPAC, ever?

Here’s what you don’t know about SoftBank and just a little about what you don’t know about SPACS…

Just when everything was looking like so many presents around the Menorah and under so many Christmas trees, the Grinch appears.

Has he stolen investor optimism, or is this just a smirky reminder that not everything’s right with the world?

Here’s what’s going on…

If you want to know why I’m so bullish, all you have to do is look at the Russell 2000: It’s on fire.

The “rotation” trade has done A LOT for the Russell 2000 a lot for equities across the board.

And I’ve got the perfect trade to go along with this trend…

“As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.”

That’s your Capital Wave Forecast. It’s short and sweet and reminiscent of another time when markets were rocking, and investors were raking in the dough.

You might even say, “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” as famously said by Yogi Berra.

Here’s what I mean, and what to listen closely for as we close in on the end of the year…

Yes, I’m still very bullish. And, yes, maybe my eyes are getting a little glassed over. After all, I’m calling for another 10%-15% rise in benchmarks in 2021 – maybe more.

But that doesn’t mean I’m blind to what’s going on.

In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of newly minted SPAC IPO pickup artists cruising the financial highways and byways looking to hook up with private operating companies, merge them into their magic SPACs, and exit the highway, where some will break down, if not blow up, on some dead end.

Even traditional IPOs are coming out fast and furiously, with Airbnb and DoorDash debuting this week.

Everyone in IPO Land is partying like it’s 1999. Is this “déjà vu all over again,” or is this time different?

Here’s the skinny on some fat IPOs, how the bull market’s been driving irrational exuberance in IPO Land, and how to not lose your shirt betting this time is different…

This Total Wealth is about something different today.

It’s about you, me, and the country. It’s about the whole COVID-19 picture, at least the picture we think we see. It’s about the surge in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere, but not in one country.

It’s about what you think is going on, what you think we should do, or shouldn’t do.

Yes, I’m “isolating” but I’m not isolated. I’ve got a huge audience here and I’m calling on you to help us all understand how you all feel. And why we’re suffering and China’s not.

So, please send me your comments, experiences, thoughts, and what you believe we should be doing.

Let’s dive in…