After a week where the Dow and S&P 500 hit new records, John gives Scott kudos for calling it as he breaks down the rally by sector. Financials, energy, and industrials led the way while tech was off slightly.
Scott takes the kudos – and argues that the rally isn't over yet. "We're going even higher."
The 10-year ticked up slightly past 3%, which is fuel for any rally since in John's words "financials love that – that's net interest income, net interest margin, that falls right to the bottom line."
Scott explains why recent dollar weakness could propel U.S. multinational companies, and the S&P 500, higher. "If the dollar is gonna sell off, it's gonna enable emerging market currencies to rally." That's tonic for inflation in emerging economies.
And don't forget – 47% of the revenues for the S&P 500 come from U.S. multinational companies. So as the dollar gets weaker, those companies are in for a boost. "You need to be paying a lot of attention to what the dollar's doing, because it's gonna be a really important indicator for the markets."
John turns to the Fed policy decision to be announced later this week, and why the Fed is hoping for a "soft landing" of 3% growth that will enable a 25-basis point hike.
Scott games out a scenario where interest rates could be a whopping 75 basis points higher in March than they are today – a massive departure from the near-zero rate regime the Fed put in place for almost all of the last decade. Scott and John discuss quantitative tightening in the U.S. and around the world, and how this will affect the U.S. dollar and emerging markets.
Reading between the lines of the latest European Central bank maneuverings, Scott makes sense of the ECB's decision to end 30 billion euros per month of bond purchases starting January, and what Mario Draghi's likely successor will be inheriting.
John asks Scott about the new Apple Watch and the new features that could affect more than just the tech industry. "By having this electrocardiogram in there… I think that is going to be a huge driver for insurance companies."
But it doesn't stop there.
As Scott, notes, 62% Apple revenue comes from iPods, 13% from services, 11% from Macintosh, and 8.5% from iPad, and 5.5% from "other." Why this could be a game-changer: "If you have a device that could spare doctors from unnecessary tests… isn't there potential for insurance companies to say, 'Why don't we start writing prescriptions for this?'"
John breaks down the latest volley in the trade war with China, and why the markets shrugged at the news of more tariffs last week.
There's another mania in the stock market – this time with pot stocks. What are investors to do when pot stocks like Tilray, with next to no revenues, have market capitalizations bigger than American Airlines? John calls the valuation in Tilray "baffling" and tells listeners how this is just another example of the flock mentality.
Scott and John close out this week's episode by talking about the upcoming Stansberry Vegas Conference and how it's lineup of great speakers makes it one of the best conferences on or off Wall Street.
Scott tells listeners how they can follow the conference, and how they can sign up to stream it at Stansberryvegas.com.